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EMERSON 

AND    OTHER    ESSAYS 


Books  by  John  Jay  Chapman 

EMEESON  AND  OTHER  ESSAYS 

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EMERSON 


AND   OTHER    ESSAYS 


BY 

JOHN  JAY   CHAPMAN 


NEW  AND  REVISED  EDITION 


NEW    YORK 

MOFFAT,    YARD    AND    COMPANY 

1909 


Copyright,  1S98, 

By  Charles  Scribner's  Sons. 

Copyright,  1909, 

By  John  Jay  Chapman. 


>LM  VI  t  Aii 


V  N  ,  SANTA  BAR  11  All  A 

S  ll 

/cfo9 


PREFACE 

These  essays  have  been  out  of  print  for 
some  years.  In  reprinting  them  I  have  no  de- 
sire to  pat  them  on  the  head ;  at  least  I  will  do 
no  more  than  the  fond  nurse  at  the  door  of  the 
dancing  class,  who  gives  to  each  of  her  charges 
a  solicitous  dab  or  poke  before  losing  them  into 
the  cold  miscellaneous  world,  where  so  many 
better-looking  children  will  hide  them  from  all 
eyes  but  hers. 

I  suppose  that  every  man  has  a  volume  of 
essays  inside  of  him,  but  only  a  few  have  the 
leisure  to  turn  themselves  inside  out  and  dis- 
close their  education,  their  predilections  and 
the  history  of  their  beliefs.  As  I  look  back 
over  the  past,  the  figure  of  Emerson  looms  up 
in  my  mind  as  the  first  modern  man,  and  the 
City  of  Boston  as  the  first  living  civilization 
which  I  knew. 

New  York  is  not  a  civilization ;  it  is  a  rail- 
way station.  There  are  epochs  of  revolution 
and  convulsion, — times  of  the  migration  or  ex- 
v 


VI 


PREFACE 


pulsion  of  races,  when  too  much  happens  in 
a  moment  to  permit  of  anything  being  either 
understood  or  recorded.  Such  times  have  no 
history.  They  are  mysteries  and  remain  mys- 
terious. Such  an  epoch  has  been  passing  over 
New  York  City  ever  since  I  have  known  it. 
The  present  in  New  York  is  so  powerful  that 
the  past  is  lost.  There  is  no  past.  Not  a  book- 
shelf, nor  a  cornice,  nor  a  sign,  nor  a  face,  nor 
a  type  of  mind  endures  for  a  generation,  and 
a  New  York  boy  who  goes  away  to  boarding 
school  returns  to  a  new  world  at  each  vacation. 
He  finds  perhaps  on  his  return  from  boarding 
school,  that  the  street  where  he  and  his  com- 
panions used  to  play  ball  is  given  over  to 
a  migration  of  Teutons.  When  he  returns 
from  college,  the  Teutons  have  vanished  and 
given  place  to  Italians.  When  he  reaches  the 
Law  school,  behold  no  more  Italians — Polish 
Jews  to  the  horizon's  verge. 

The  young  person  born  in  New  York  during 
the  last  quarter  century  has  been  like  a  rat  in 
a  bag  which  the  rat-catcher  keeps  agitating  lest 
the  creature's  teeth  get  a  purchase  on  the 
prison.  The  New  York  youth  cannot  be  ex- 
pected to  get  hold  of  any  idea  while  the  kaleido- 
scope is  turning  so  furiously.     He    is    numb 


PREFACE  vii 

and  dizzy.  He  cannot  connect  his  reading 
with  his  environment ;  for  the  books  of  the 
world  have  been  projected  out  of  quietude. 
They  reflect  stability,  depth,  relaxation,  and  all 
those  conditions  of  peace  and  harmony  which 
make  thought  possible.  The  youth,  therefore, 
discards  books  as  incomprehensible, — foolish  in 
fact.  Education  has  for  the  time  being  lost  its 
significance. 

Now  in  Massachusetts  there  has  been  a  con- 
secutive development  of  thought  since  colonial 
times.  Her  links  with  the  past  have  never 
been  broken.  The  influx  of  new  blood  and  new 
idea  has  not  overwhelmed  the  old  blood  and 
old  idea.  There  is  in  New  England  a  traceable 
connection  between  the  whole  historic  volume 
and  stream  of  human  culture, — that  moving 
treasury  of  human  thought  and  experience 
which  flows  down  out  of  antiquity  and  in- 
volves us,  surrounds  and  supports  us  and  makes 
us  the  thing  we  are,  no  matter  how  much  we 
may  struggle  or  how  little  we  may  understand. 
In  Massachusetts  you  may  still  stop  the  first 
man  you  meet  in  the  street  and  find  in  his  first 
remark  the  influence  of  Wyclif  or  Samuel 
Adams.  The  spiritual  life  in  New  England 
has  never  been  luxuriant.     It  is  one-sided,  sad 


viii  PREFACE 

and  inexpressive  in  many  ways.  But  it  has 
coherence,  and  this  is  what  makes  it  valuable 
for  the  young  American.  Every  young  person 
in  the  United  States  ought  to  be  sent  to  Massa- 
chusetts for  some  part  of  his  education.  The 
proximity  of  Harvard  College  to  Boston  gives 
Harvard  a  natural  advantage  over  our  other 
colleges.  You  cannot  go  to  Harvard  or  in- 
deed to  any  New  England  college  without  get- 
ting into  some  sort  of  contact  with  a  logical 
civilization. 

I  had  read  Emerson's  essays  as  a  boy,  but  it 
was  not  till  I  reached  college  that  they  assumed 
any  special  significance  to  me.  Then  came  a 
time  when  it  seemed  as  if  Emerson  were  a 
younger  brother  to  Shakespeare.  No  book 
except  Shakespeare's  plays  ever  gave  me  such 
keen  delight.  I  was  intoxicated  with  Emerson. 
He  let  loose  something  within  me  which  made 
me  in  my  own  eyes  as  good  as  anyone  else. 
To  express  this  I  invented  a  phrase  which  I 
have  always  thought  equal  to  any  of  Emer- 
son's own  exhortations  to  spiritual  independ- 
ence, and  much  more  modest  in  form.  It  was 
this : 

"After  all  it  is  just  as  well  that  there  should 
be  one  person  like  me  in  the  world." 


PREFACE  ix 

When  I  was  a  student  at  Harvard,  Emerson 
was  still  living1.  And  I  have  seen  him  wander- 
ing about  the  streets  of  Cambridge  in  that  stage 
which  is  called  dotage  and  which  often  borders 
on  the  sublime  even  in  ordinary  people.  I 
never  met  him ;  but  many  of  his  contemporaries 
were  alive  and  very  willing  to  talk  about  the 
early  days.  My  grandmother,  a  Massachu- 
setts woman,  told  me  that  the  first  time  she  had 
ever  heard  Emerson's  name  was  when  a  neigh- 
bor said  to  her:  "O  have  you  heard?  The 
new  minister  of  the  Second  Church  has  gone 
mad."  Out  of  gossip  and  observation  I  put  to- 
gether a  picture  of  Emerson  and  his  times, 
without  the  least  intention  of  writing  about 
him,  without,  indeed,  knowing  what  I  was  do- 
ing; and  when,  years  afterwards,  the  Atlantic 
Monthly  asked  me  to  write  about  Emerson  I 
said  to  myself  "Very  well,  why  not?  Be  bold, 
be  bold,  be  not  too  bold." 

Not  without  trepidation  did  I  launch  all  those 
generalizations  about  Emerson  and  the  New 
England  of  Emerson's  day.  My  reading  was 
so  superficial  that  I  felt  almost  criminal  in 
adopting  that  pose  of  finality  which  is  cus- 
tomary with  historians.  I  secretly  wondered 
whether  all  historians  were  as  great  humbugs 


x  PREFACE 

as  I,  or  whether  they  really  knew  more  about 
the  past. 

My  reassurance,  however,  came  almost  at 
once  in  the  shape  of  letters  from  old  original 
Emersonians  in  all  parts  of  the  country,  who 
wrote  that  I  had  found  the  Emerson  whom  they 
had  known.  I  knew,  of  course,  that  what 
these  ancient  people  enjoyed  had  come  from 
themselves.  Out  of  the  mouths  not  of  babes 
and  sucklings  but  of  sybils  and  old  prophets 
had  the  truth  been  established.  I  was  at  one 
with  these  old  ante-bellum  enthusiasts.  I  had 
begun  and  ended  by  finding  my  own  soul  in 
theirs.  Their  vision  was  my  vision.  I  had 
climbed  up  out  of  the  hurly-burly  of  nineteenth 
century  America  and  was  sitting  on  a  sort  of 
bleak  Massachusetts  Ararat,  panting  but  safe. 
Dry  ground  at  least  was  under  foot ;  a  consecu- 
tive relation  to  all  the  past  had  been  established. 
This  much  I  owe  to  Emerson  and  to  Massachu- 
setts ;  and,  no  doubt,  thousands  of  others  before 
and  since  have  owed  the  same. 

April,  1909.  J.  J.  C. 


CONTENTS 

Page 

Emerson 3 

Walt  Whitman 111 

A  Study  of  Romeo 131 

Michael  Angelo's  Sonnets 153 

The  Fourth  Canto  of  the  Inferno    .    .  173 

Robert  Browning        185 

Robert  Louis  Stevenson 217 


EMERSON 


EMERSON 


I 


"  LEAVE  this  hypocritical  prating  about  the 
masses.  Masses  are  rude,  lame,  unmade, 
pernicious  in  their  demands  and  influence,  and 
need  not  to  be  flattered,  but  to  be  schooled. 
I  wish  not  to  concede  anything  to  them,  but 
to  tame,  drill,  divide,  and  break  them  up,  and 
draw  individuals  out  of  them.  The  worst  of 
charity  is  that  the  lives  you  are  asked  to  pre- 
serve are  not  worth  preserving.  Masses ! 
The  calamity  is  the  masses.  I  do  not  wish 
any  mass  at  all,  but  honest  men  only,  lovely, 
sweet,  accomplished  women  only,  and  no 
shovel-handed,  narrow-brained,  gin-drinking 
million  stockingers  or  lazzaroni  at  all.  If 
government  knew  how,  I  should  like  to  see 
it  check,  not  multiply  the  population. 
When  it  reaches  its  true  law  of  action,  every 
man  that  is  born  will  be  hailed  as  essential. 
Away  with  this  hurrah  of  masses,  and  let  us 
have  the  considerate  vote  of  single  men  spoken 
on  their  honor  and  their  conscience." 
3 


EMERSON 

This  extract  from  The  Conduct  of  Life 
gives  fairly  enough  the  leading  thought  of 
Emerson's  life.  The  unending  warfare  be- 
tween the  individual  and  society  shows  us  in 
each  generation  a  poet  or  two,  a  dramatist  or 
a  musician  who  exalts  and  deifies  the  individual, 
and  leads  us  back  again  to  the  only  object 
which  is  really  worthy  of  enthusiasm  or  which 
can  permanently  excite  it,  — the  character  of  a 
man.  It  is  surprising  to  find  this  identity  of 
content  in  all  great  deliverances.  The  only 
thing  we  really  admire  is  personal  liberty. 
Those  who  fought  for  it  and  those  who  en- 
joyed it  are  our  heroes. 

But  the  hero  may  enslave  his  race  by  bring- 
ing in  a  system  of  tyranny;  the  battle-cry  of 
freedom  may  become  a  dogma  which  crushes 
the  soul ;  one  good  custom  may  corrupt  the 
world.  And  so  the  inspiration  of  one  age 
becomes  the  damnation  of  the  next.  This 
crystallizing  of  life  into  death  has  occurred  so 
often  that  it  may  almost  be  regarded  as  one 
of  the  laws  of  progress. 

Emerson  represents  a  protest  against  the 
tyranny  of  democracy.  He  is  the  most 
recent  example  of  elemental  hero-worship. 
His  opinions  are  absolutely  unqualified  ex- 
cept by  his  temperament.  He  expresses 
a  form  of  belief  in  the  importance  of  the 
4 


EMERSON 

individual  which  is  independent  of  any  per- 
sonal relations  he  has  with  the  world.  It 
is  as  if  a  man  had  been  withdrawn  from  the 
earth  and  dedicated  to  condensing  and  em- 
bodying this  eternal  idea  —  the  value  of  the 
individual  soul  —  so  vividly,  so  vitally,  that 
his  words  could  not  die,  yet  in  such  illusive 
and  abstract  forms  that  by  no  chance  and  by 
no  power  could  his  creed  be  used  for  pur- 
poses of  tyranny.  Dogma  cannot  be  ex- 
tracted from  it.  Schools  cannot  be  built  on 
it.  It  either  lives  as  the  spirit  lives,  or  else  it 
evaporates  and  leaves  nothing.  Emerson  was 
so  afraid  of  the  letter  that  killeth  that  he  would 
hardly  trust  his  words  to  print.  He  was  as- 
sured there  was  no  such  thing  as  literal  truth, 
but  only  literal  falsehood.  He  therefore  re- 
sorted to  metaphors  which  could  by  no  chance 
be  taken  literally.  And  he  has  probably 
succeeded  in  leaving  a  body  of  work  which 
cannot  be  made  to  operate  to  any  other  end 
than  that  for  which  he  designed  it.  If  this  be 
true,  he  has  accomplished  the  inconceivable 
feat  of  eluding  misconception.  If  it  be  true, 
he  stands  alone  in  the  history  of  teachers ;  he 
has  circumvented  fate,  he  has  left  an  unmixed 
blessing  behind  him. 

The  signs  of  those   times  which   brought 
forth  Emerson  are  not  wholly  undecipherable. 
5 


EMERSON 

They  are  the  same  times  which  gave  rise  to 
every  character  of  significance  during  the 
period  before  the  war.  Emerson  is  indeed 
the  easiest  to  understand  of  all  the  men  of  his 
time,  because  his  life  is  freest  from  the  tangles 
and  qualifications  of  circumstance.  He  is  a 
sheer  and  pure  type  and  creature  of  destiny, 
and  the  unconsciousness  that  marks  his  devel- 
opment allies  him  to  the  deepest  phenomena. 
It  is  convenient,  in  describing  him,  to  use 
language  which  implies  consciousness  on  his 
part,  but  he  himself  had  no  purpose,  no  theory 
of  himself;  he  was  a  product. 

The  years  between  1820  and  1830  were  the 
most  pitiable  through  which  this  country  has 
ever  passed.  The  conscience  of  the  North 
was  pledged  to  the  Missouri  Compromise,  and 
that  Compromise  neither  slumbered  nor  slept. 
In  New  England,  where  the  old  theocratical 
oligarchy  of  the  colonies  had  survived  the 
Revolution  and  kept  under  its  own  water- 
locks  the  new  flood  of  trade,  the  conserva- 
tism of  politics  reinforced  the  conservatism 
of  religion ;  and  as  if  these  two  inquisitions 
were  not  enough  to  stifle  the  soul  of  man, 
the  conservatism  of  business  self-interest 
was  superimposed.  The  history  of  the  con- 
flicts which  followed  has  been  written  by  the 
radicals,  who  negligently  charge  up  to  self- 
6 


EMERSON 

interest  all  the  resistance  which  establishments 
offer  to  change.  But  it  was  not  solely  self- 
interest,  it  was  conscience  that  backed  the 
Missouri  Compromise,  nowhere  else,  naturally, 
so  strongly  as  in  New  England.  It  was  con- 
science that  made  cowards  of  us  all.  The 
white-lipped  generation  of  Edward  Everett 
were  victims,  one  might  even  say  martyrs,  to 
conscience.  They  suffered  the  most  terrible 
martyrdom  that  can  fall  to  man,  a  martyrdom 
which  injured  their  immortal  volition  and 
dried  up  the  springs  of  life.  If  it  were  not 
that  our  poets  have  too  seldom  deigned  to  dip 
into  real  life,  I  do  not  know  what  more  awful 
subject  for  a  poem  could  have  been  found  than 
that  of  the  New  England  judge  enforcing  the 
fugitive  slave  law.  For  lack  of  such  a  poem 
the  heroism  of  these  men  has  been  forgotten, 
the  losing  heroism  of  conservatism.  It  was 
this  spiritual  power  of  a  committed  conscience 
which  met  the  new  forces  as  they  arose,  and  it 
deserves  a  better  name  than  these  new  forces 
afterward  gave  it.  In  1830  the  social  fruits 
of  these  heavy  conditions  could  be  seen  in  the 
life  of  the  people.     Free  speech  was  lost. 

"I   know  no  country,"  says   Tocqueville, 

who  was  here  in  1831,  "in  which  there   is 

so  little  independence  of  mind  and  freedom 

of  discussion  as  in  America."      Tocqueville 

7 


EMERSON 

recurs  to  the  point  again  and  again.  He  can- 
not disguise  his  surprise  at  it,  and  it  tinged 
his  whole  philosophy  and  his  book.  The 
timidity  of  the  Americans  of  this  era  was  a 
thing  which  intelligent  foreigners  could  not 
understand.  Miss  Martineau  wrote  in  her 
Autobiography :  "  It  was  not  till  months 
afterwards  that  I  was  told  that  there  were  two 
reasons  why  I  was  not  invited  there  [Chelsea] 
as  elsewhere.  One  reason  was  that  I  had 
avowed,  in  reply  to  urgent  questions,  that  I 
was  disappointed  in  an  oration  of  Mr. 
Everett's ;  and  another  was  that  I  had  pub- 
licly condemned  the  institution  of  slavery.  I 
hope  the  Boston  people  have  outgrown  the 
childishness  of  sulking  at  opinions  not  in 
either  case  volunteered,  but  obtained  by  pres- 
sure. But  really,  the  subservience  to  opinion 
at  that  time  seemed  a  sort  of  mania." 

The  mania  was  by  no  means  confined  to 
Boston,  but  qualified  this  period  of  our  history 
throughout  the  Northern  States.  There  was 
no  literature.  "  If  great  writers  have  not  at 
present  existed  in  America,  the  reason  is  very 
simply  given  in  the  fact  that  there  can  be  no 
literary  genius  without  freedom  of  opinion, 
and  freedom  of  opinion  does  not  exist  in 
America,"  wrote  Tocqueville.  There  were 
no  amusements,  neither  music  nor  sport 
8 


EMERSON 

nor  pastime,  indoors  or  out  of  doors.  The 
whole  life  of  the  community  was  a  life  of  the 
intelligence,  and  upon  the  intelligence  lay  the 
weight  of  intellectual  tyranny.  The  pressure 
kept  on  increasing,  and  the  suppressed  forces 
kept  on  increasing,  till  at  last,  as  if  to  show 
what  gigantic  power  was  needed  to  keep  con- 
servatism dominant,  the  Merchant  Province 
put  forward  Daniel  Webster. 

The  worst  period  of  panic  seems  to  have 
preceded  the  anti-slavery  agitations  of  1831, 
because  these  agitations  soon  demonstrated 
that  the  sky  did  not  fall  nor  the  earth  yawn 
and  swallow  Massachusetts  because  of  Mr. 
Garrison's  opinions,  as  most  people  had  sin- 
cerely believed  would  be  the  case.  Some 
semblance  of  free  speech  was  therefore  grad- 
ually regained. 

Let  us  remember  the  world  upon  which  the 
young  Emerson's  eyes  opened.  The  South 
was  a  plantation.  The  North  crooked  the 
hinges  of  the  knee  where  thrift  might  follow 
fawning.  It  was  the  era  of  Martin  Chuzzlewit, 
a  malicious  caricature,  —  founded  on  fact. 
This  time  of  humiliation,  when  there  was  no 
free  speech,  no  literature,  little  manliness,  no 
reality,  no  simplicity,  no  accomplishment, 
was  the  era  of  American  brag.  We  flattered 
the  foreigner  and  we  boasted  of  ourselves. 
9 


EMERSON 

We  were  over-sensitive,  insolent,  and  cring- 
ing. As  late  as  1845,  G.  P.  Putnam,  a  most 
sensible  and  modest  man,  published  a  book 
to  show  what  the  country  had  done  in  the 
field  of  culture.  The  book  is  a  monument 
of  the  age.  With  all  its  good  sense  and  good 
humor,  it  justifies  foreign  contempt  because 
it  is  explanatory.  Underneath  everything 
lay  a  feeling  of  unrest,  an  instinct,  —  "  this 
country  cannot  permanently  endure  half  slave 
and  half  free,"  —  which  was  the  truth,  but 
which  could  not  be  uttered. 

So  long  as  there  is  any  subject  which  men 
may  not  freely  discuss,  they  are  timid  upon 
all  subjects.  They  wear  an  iron  crown  and 
talk  in  whispers.  Such  social  conditions 
crush  and  maim  the  individual,  and  through- 
out New  England,  as  throughout  the  whole 
North,  the  individual  was  crushed  and 
maimed. 

The  generous  youths  who  came  to  man- 
hood between  1820  and  1830,  while  this 
deadly  era  was  maturing,  seem  to  have  under- 
gone a  revulsion  against  the  world  almost 
before  touching  it  ;  at  least  two  of  them 
suffered,  revolted,  and  condemned,  while  still 
boys  sitting  on  benches  in  school,  and  came 
forth  advancing  upon  this  old  society  like 
gladiators.     The    activity   of  William  Lloyd 


EMERSON 

Garrison,  the  man  of  action,  preceded  by 
several  years  that  of  Emerson,  who  is  his 
prophet.  Both  of  them  were  parts  of  one 
revolution.  One  of  Emerson's  articles  of 
faith  was  that  a  man's  thoughts  spring  from 
his  actions  rather  than  his  actions  from  his 
thoughts,  and  possibly  the  same  thing  holds 
good  for  society  at  large.  Perhaps  all  truths, 
whether  moral  or  economic,  must  be  worked 
out  in  real  life  before  they  are  discovered  by 
the  student,  and  it  was  therefore  necessary 
that  Garrison  should  be  evolved  earlier  than 
Emerson. 

The  silent  years  of  early  manhood,  during 
which  Emerson  passed  through  the  Divinity 
School  and  to  his  ministry,  known  by  few, 
understood  by  none,  least  of  all  by  himself, 
were  years  in  which  the  revolting  spirit  of  an 
archangel  thought  out  his  creed.  He  came 
forth  perfect,  with  that  serenity  of  which  we 
have  scarce  another  example  in  history,  — 
that  union  of  the  man  himself,  his  beliefs,  and 
his  vehicle  of  expression  that  makes  men 
great  because  it  makes  them  comprehensible. 
The  philosophy  into  which  he  had  already 
transmuted  all  his  earlier  theology  at  the 
time  we  first  meet  him  consisted  of  a  very 
simple  drawing  together  of  a  few  ideas,  all  of 
which  had  long  been  familiar  to  the  world. 
ii 


EMERSON 

It  is  the  wonderful  use  he  made  of  these  ideas, 
the  closeness  with  which  they  fitted  his  soul, 
the  tact  with  which  he  took  what  he  needed, 
like  a  bird  building  its  nest,  that  make  the 
originality,  the  man. 

The  conclusion  of  Berkeley,  that  the  ex- 
ternal world  is  known  to  us  only  through  our 
impressions,  and  that  therefore,  for  aught  we 
know,  the  whole  universe  exists  only  in  our 
own  consciousness,  cannot  be  disproved.  It 
is  so  simple  a  conception  that  a  child  may 
understand  it;  and  it  has  probably  been 
passed  before  the  attention  of  every  thinking 
man  since  Plato's  time.  The  notion  is  in  it- 
self a  mere  philosophical  catch  or  crux  to 
which  there  is  no  answer.  It  may  be  true. 
The  mystics  made  this  doctrine  useful.  They 
were  not  content  to  doubt  the  independent 
existence  of  the  external  world.  They  ima- 
gined that  this  external  world,  the  earth,  the 
planets,  the  phenomena  of  nature,  bore  some 
relation  to  the  emotions  and  destiny  of  the 
soul.  The  soul  and  the  cosmos  were  some- 
how related,  and  related  so  intimately  that  the 
cosmos  might  be  regarded  as  a  sort  of  pro- 
jection or  diagram  of  the  soul. 

Plato  was  the  first  man  who  perceived  that 
this  idea  could  be  made  to  provide  the  philos- 
opher with   a  vehicle   of    expression   more 

12 


EMERSON 

powerful  than  any  other.  If  a  man  will  once 
plant  himself  firmly  on  the  proposition  that 
he  is  the  universe,  that  every  emotion  or 
expression  of  his  mind  is  correlated  in  some 
way  to  phenomena  in  the  external  world,  and 
that  he  shall  say  how  correlated,  he  is  in  a 
position  where  the  power  of  speech  is  at  a 
maximum.  His  figures  of  speech,  his  tropes, 
his  witticisms,  take  rank  with  the  law  of  grav- 
ity and  the  precession  of  the  equinoxes. 
Philosophical  exaltation  of  the  individual  can- 
not go  beyond  this  point.     It  is  the  climax. 

This  is  the  school  of  thought  to  which 
Emerson  belonged.  The  sun  and  moon,  the 
planets,  are  mere  symbols.  They  signify 
whatever  the  poet  chooses.  The  planets  for 
the  most  part  stay  in  conjunction  just  long 
enough  to  flash  his  thought  through  their 
symbolism,  and  no  permanent  relation  is 
established  between  the  soul  and  the  zodiac. 
There  is,  however,  one  link  of  correlation  be- 
tween the  external  and  internal  worlds  which 
Emerson  considered  established,  and  in  which 
he  believed  almost  literally,  namely,  the  moral 
law.  This  idea  he  drew  from  Kant  through 
Coleridge  and  Wordsworth,  and  it  is  so  famil- 
iar to  us  all  that  it  hardly  needs  stating.  The 
fancy  that  the  good,  the  true,  the  beautiful, — 
all  things  of  which  we  instinctively  approve, 
13 


EMERSON 

—  are  somehow  connected  together  and  are 
really  one  thing;  that  our  appreciation  of 
them  is  in  its  essence  the  recognition  of  a 
law ;  that  this  law,  in  fact  all  law  and  the  very 
idea  of  law,  is  a  mere  subjective  experience ; 
and  that  hence  any  external  sequence  which 
we  coordinate  and  name,  like  the  law  of  grav- 
ity, is  really  intimately  connected  with  our 
moral  nature,  —  this  fancy  has  probably  some 
basis  of  truth.  Emerson  adopted  it  as  a 
corner-stone  of  his  thought. 

Such  are  the  ideas  at  the  basis  of  Emerson's 
philosophy,  and  it  is  fair  to  speak  of  them  in 
this  place  because  they  antedate  everything 
else  which  we  know  of  him.  They  had  been 
for  years  in  his  mind  before  he  spoke  at  all. 
It  was  in  the  armor  of  this  invulnerable  ideal- 
ism and  with  weapons  like  shafts  of  light  that 
he  came  forth  to  fight. 

In  1836,  at  the  age  of  thirty-three,  Emerson 
published  the  little  pamphlet  called  Nature, 
which  was  an  attempt  to  state  his  creed.  Al- 
though still  young,  he  was  not  without  ex- 
perience of  life.  He  had  been  assistant 
minister  to  the  Rev.  Dr.  Ware  from  1829 
to  1832,  when  he  resigned  his  ministry  on 
account  of  his  views  regarding  the  Lord's 
Supper.  He  had  married  and  lost  his  first 
wife  in  the  same  interval.  He  had  been 
14 


EMERSON 

abroad  and  had  visited  Carlyle  in  1833.  He 
had  returned  and  settled  in  Concord,  and  had 
taken  up  the  profession  of  lecturing,  upon 
which  he  in  part  supported  himself  ever  after. 
It  is  unnecessary  to  review  these  early  lec- 
tures. "  Large  portions  of  them,"  says  Mr. 
Cabot,  his  biographer,  "appeared  afterwards  in 
the  Essays,  especially  those  of  the  first  series." 
Suffice  it  that  through  them  Emerson  had 
become  so  well  known  that  although  Nature 
was  published  anonymously,  he  was  recog- 
nized as  the  author.  Many  people  had  heard 
of  him  at  the  time  he  resigned  his  charge, 
and  the  story  went  abroad  that  the  young 
minister  of  the  Second  Church  had  gone 
mad.  The  lectures  had  not  discredited  the 
story,  and  Nature  seemed  to  corroborate  it. 
Such  was  the  impression  which  the  book 
made  upon  Boston  in  1836.  As  we  read  it 
to-day,  we  are  struck  by  its  extraordinary 
beauty  of  language.  It  is  a  supersensuous, 
lyrical,  and  sincere  rhapsody,  written  evi- 
dently by  a  man  of  genius.  It  reveals  a 
nature  compelling  respect,  —  a  Shelley,  and 
yet  a  sort  of  Yankee  Shelley,  who  is  mad  only 
when  the  wind  is  nor'-nor'west;  a  mature 
nature  which  must  have  been  nourished  for 
years  upon  its  own  thoughts,  to  speak  this 
new    language    so    eloquently,    to    stand     so 


EMERSON 

calmly  on  its  feet.  The  deliverance  of  his 
thought  is  so  perfect  that  this  work  adapts 
itself  to  our  mood  and  has  the  quality  of 
poetry.  This  fluency  Emerson  soon  lost;  it 
is  the  quality  missing  in  his  poetry.  It  is  the 
efflorescence  of  youth. 

"  In  good  health,  the  air  is  a  cordial  of 
incredible  virtue.  Crossing  a  bare  common, 
in  snow  puddles,  at  twilight,  under  a  clouded 
sky,  without  having  in  my  thoughts  any  occur- 
rence of  special  good  fortune,  I  have  enjoyed 
a  perfect  exhilaration.  I  am  glad  to  the  brink 
of  fear.  In  the  woods,  too,  a  man  casts  off 
his  years,  as  the  snake  his  slough,  and  at  what 
period  soever  of  life  is  always  a  child.  In 
the  woods  is  perpetual  youth.  Within  these 
plantations  of  God,  a  decorum  and  sanctity 
reign,  a  perennial  festival  is  dressed,  and  the 
guest  sees  not  how  he  should  tire  of  them  in 
a  thousand  years.  ...  It  is  the  uniform 
effect  of  culture  on  the  human  mind,  not  to 
shake  our  faith  in  the  stability  of  particular 
phenomena,  as  heat,  water,  azote;  but  to 
lead  us  to  regard  nature  as  phenomenon, 
not  a  substance ;  to  attribute  necessary  exist- 
ence to  spirit;  to  esteem  nature  as  an  accident 
and  an  effect." 

Perhaps  these  quotations  from  the  pam- 
phlet called  Nature  are  enough  to  show  the 
16 


EMERSON 

clouds  of  speculation  in  which  Emerson  had 
been  walking.  With  what  lightning  they 
were  charged  was  soon  seen. 

In  1837  he  was  asked  to  deliver  the  Phi 
Beta  Kappa  oration  at  Cambridge.  This  was 
the  opportunity  for  which  he  had  been  wait- 
ing. The  mystic  and  eccentric  young  poet- 
preacher  now  speaks  his  mind,  and  he  turns 
out  to  be  a  man  exclusively  interested  in  real 
life.  This  recluse,  too  tender  for  contact  with 
the  rough  facts  of  the  world,  whose  con- 
science has  retired  him  to  rural  Concord, 
pours  out  a  vial  of  wrath.  This  cub  puts 
forth  the  paw  of  a  full-grown  lion. 

Emerson  has  left  behind  him  nothing 
stronger  than  this  address,  The  American 
Scholar.  It  was  the  first  application  of  his 
views  to  the  events  of  his  day,  written  and 
delivered  in  the  heat  of  early  manhood  while 
his  extraordinary  powers  were  at  their  height. 
It  moves  with  a  logical  progression  of  which 
he  soon  lost  the  habit.  The  subject  of  it, 
the  scholar's  relation  to  the  world,  was  the 
passion  of  his  life.  The  body  of  his  belief  is 
to  be  found  in  this  address,  and  in  any  ade- 
quate account  of  him  the  whole  address  ought 
to  be  given. 

"Thus  far,"  he  said,  "  our  holiday  has  been 
simply  a  friendly  sign  of  the  survival  of  the 
2  17 


EMERSON 

love  of  letters  amongst  a  people  too  busy  to 
give  to  letters  any  more.  As  such  it  is  pre- 
cious as  the  sign  of  an  indestructible  instinct. 
Perhaps  the  time  is  already  come  when  it 
ought  to  be,  and  will  be,  something  else; 
when  the  sluggard  intellect  of  this  continent 
will  look  from  under  its  iron  lids  and  fill  the 
postponed  expectation  of  the  world  with  some- 
thing better  than  the  exertions  of  mechanical 
skill.  .  .  .  The  theory  of  books  is  noble. 
The  scholar  of  the  first  age  received  into  him 
the  world  around ;  brooded  thereon ;  gave  it 
the  new  arrangement  of  his  own  mind,  and 
uttered  it  again.  It  came  into  him  life ;  it 
went  out  from  him  truth.  .  .  .  Yet  hence 
arises  a  grave  mischief.  The  sacredness  which 
attaches  to  the  act  of  creation,  the  act  of 
thought,  is  transferred  to  the  record.  The 
poet  chanting  was  felt  to  be  a  divine  man : 
henceforth  the  chant  is  divine,  also.  The 
writer  was  a  just  and  wise  spirit :  hence- 
forward it  is  settled  the  book  is  perfect;  as 
love  of  the  hero  corrupts  into  worship  of  his 
statue.  Instantly  the  book  becomes  noxious : 
the  guide  is  a  tyrant.  .  .  .  Books  are  the 
best  of  things,  well  used ;  abused,  among 
the  worst.  What  is  the  right  use?  What 
is  the  one  end  which  all  means  go  to  effect? 
They  are  for  nothing  but  to  inspire.  .  .  . 
iS 


EMERSON 

The  one  thing  in  the  world,  of  value,  is  the  act- 
ive soul.  This  every  man  is  entitled  to  ;  this 
every  man  contains  within  him,  although  in 
almost  all  men  obstructed,  and  as  yet  unborn. 
The  soul  active  sees  absolute  truth  and  utters 
truth,  or  creates.  In  this  action  it  is  genius ; 
not  the  privilege  of  here  and  there  a  favor- 
ite, but  the  sound  estate  of  every  man.  .  .  . 
Genius  is  always  sufficiently  the  enemy  of 
genius  by  over-influence.  The  literature  of 
every  nation  bears  me  witness.  The  English 
dramatic  poets  have  Shakspearized  now  for 
two  hundred  years.  .  .  .  These  being  his 
functions,  it  becomes  him  to  feel  all  con- 
fidence in  himself,  and  to  defer  never  to  the 
popular  cry.  He,  and  he  only,  knows  the 
world.  The  world  of  any  moment  is  the 
merest  appearance.  Some  great  decorum, 
some  fetish  of  a  government,  some  ephem- 
eral trade,  or  war,  or  man,  is  cried  up  by 
half  mankind  and  cried  down  by  the  other 
half,  as  if  all  depended  on  this  particular 
up  or  down.  The  odds  are  that  the  whole 
question  is  not  worth  the  poorest  thought 
which  the  scholar  has  lost  in  listening  to  the 
controversy.  Let  him  not  quit  his  belief  that 
a  popgun  is  a  popgun,  though  the  ancient 
and  honorable  of  the  earth  affirm  it  to  be 
the  crack  of  doom." 

19 


EMERSON 

Dr.  Holmes  called  this  speech  of  Emerson's 
our  "  intellectual  Declaration  of  Independ- 
ence," and  indeed  it  was.  "  The  Phi  Beta 
Kappa  speech,"  says  Mr.  Lowell,  "  was  an 
event  without  any  former  parallel  in  our  liter- 
ary annals,  —  a  scene  always  to  be  treasured 
in  the  memory  for  its  picturesqueness  and 
its  inspiration.  What  crowded  and  breathless 
aisles,  what  windows  clustering  with  eager 
heads,  what  enthusiasm  of  approval,  what 
grim  silence  of  foregone  dissent !  " 

The  authorities  of  the  Divinity  School  can 
hardly  have  been  very  careful  readers  of 
Nature  and  The  American  Scholar,  or  they 
would  not  have  invited  Emerson,  in  1838,  to 
deliver  the  address  to  the  graduating  class. 
This  was  Emerson's  second  opportunity  to 
apply  his  beliefs  directly  to  society.  A  few 
lines  out  of  the  famous  address  are  enough 
to  show  that  he  saw  in  the  church  of  his  day 
signs  of  the  same  decadence  that  he  saw  in 
the  letters :  "  The  prayers  and  even  the  dog- 
mas of  our  church  are  like  the  zodiac  of 
Denderah  and  the  astronomical  monuments 
of  the  Hindoos,  wholly  insulated  from  any- 
thing now  extant  in  the  life  and  business  of 
the  people.  They  mark  the  height  to  which 
the  waters  once  rose.  ...  It  is  the  office  of 
a  true  teacher  to  show  us  that  God  is,  not 
20 


EMERSON 

was ;  that  he  speaketh,  not  spake.  The  true 
Christianity  —  a  faith  like  Christ's  in  the  in- 
finitude of  man  —  is  lost.  None  believeth  in 
the  soul  of  man,  but  only  in  some  man  or 
person  old  and  departed.  Ah  me !  no  man 
goeth  alone.  All  men  go  in  flocks  to  this 
saint  or  that  poet,  avoiding  the  God  who 
seeth  in  secret.  They  cannot  see  in  secret ; 
they  love  to  be  blind  in  public.  They  think 
society  wiser  than  their  soul,  and  know  not 
that  one  soul,  and  their  soul,  is  wiser  than 
the  whole  world." 

It  is  almost  misleading  to  speak  of  the  lofty 
utterances  of  these  early  addresses  as  attacks 
upon  society,  but  their  reception  explains 
them.  The  element  of  absolute  courage  is 
the  same  in  all  natures.  Emerson  himself 
was  not  unconscious  of  what  function  he  was 
performing. 

The  "  storm  in  our  wash-bowl "  which  fol- 
lowed this  Divinity  School  address,  the  letters 
of  remonstrance  from  friends,  the  advertise- 
ments by  the  Divinity  School  of  "  no  com- 
plicity," must  have  been  cheering  to  Emerson. 
His  unseen  yet  dominating  ambition  is  shown 
throughout  the  address,  and  in  this  note  in 
his  diary  of  the  following  year :  — 

"August  31.  Yesterday  at  the  Phi  Beta 
Kappa  anniversary.     Steady,  steady.     I   am 


EMERSON 

convinced  that  if  a  man  will  be  a  true  scholar 
he  shall  have  perfect  freedom.  The  young 
people  and  the  mature  hint  at  odium  and  the 
aversion  of  forces  to  be  presently  encountered 
in  society.     I  say  No  ;   I  fear  it  not." 

The  lectures  and  addresses  which  form  the 
latter  half  of  the  first  volume  in  the  collected 
edition  show  the  early  Emerson  in  the  ripe- 
ness of  his  powers.  These  writings  have  a 
lyrical  sweep  and  a  beauty  which  the  later 
works  often  lack.  Passages  in  them  remind 
us  of  Hamlet :  — 

"  How  silent,  how  spacious,  what  room  for 
all,  yet  without  space  to  insert  an  atom ;  — 
in  graceful  succession,  in  equal  fulness,  in 
balanced  beauty,  the  dance  of  the  hours  goes 
forward  still.  Like  an  odor  of  incense,  like  a 
strain  of  music,  like  a  sleep,  it  is  inexact  and 
boundless.  It  will  not  be  dissected,  nor  un- 
ravelled, nor  shown.  .  .  .  The  great  Pan  of 
old,  who  was  clothed  in  a  leopard  skin  to 
signify  the  beautiful  variety  of  things  and  the 
firmament,  his  coat  of  stars,  —  was  but  the 
representative  of  thee,  O  rich  and  various 
man  !  thou  palace  of  sight  and  sound,  carry- 
ing in  thy  senses  the  morning  and  the  night 
and  the  unfathomable  galaxy;  in  thy  brain, 
the  geometry  of  the  City  of  God ;  in  thy 
heart,  the  bower  of  love  and  the  realms  of 

22 


EMERSON 

right  and  wrong.  .  .  .  Every  star  in  heaven 
is  discontent  and  insatiable.  Gravitation  and 
chemistry  cannot  content  them.  Ever  they 
woo  and  court  the  eye  of  the  beholder. 
Every  man  who  comes  into  the  world  they 
seek  to  fascinate  and  possess,  to  pass  into  his 
mind,  for  they  desire  to  republish  themselves 
in  a  more  delicate  world  than  that  they  oc- 
cupy. .  .  .  So  it  is  with  all  immaterial  objects. 
These  beautiful  basilisks  set  their  brute  glori- 
ous eyes  on  the  eye  of  every  child,  and,  if 
they  can,  cause  their  nature  to  pass  through 
his  wondering  eyes  into  him,  and  so  all  things 
are  mixed." 

Emerson  is  never  far  from  his  main 
thought:  — 

"  The  universe  does  not  attract  us  till  it  is 
housed  in  an  individual."  "  A  man,  a  personal 
ascendency,  is  the  only  great  phenomenon." 

"  I  cannot  find  language  of  sufficient  energy 
to  convey  my  sense  of  the  sacredness  of 
private  integrity." 

On  the  other  hand,  he  is  never  far  from  his 
great  fear :  "  But  Truth  is  such  a  fly-away, 
such  a  sly-boots,  so  untransportable  and  un- 
barrelable  a  commodity,  that  it  is  as  bad  to 
catch  as  light."  "  Let  him  beware  of  propos- 
ing to  himself  any  end.  ...  I  say  to  you 
plainly,  there  is  no  end  so  sacred  or  so  large 
23 


EMERSON 

that  if  pursued  for  itself  will  not  become'car- 
rion  and  an  offence  to  the  nostril." 

There  can  be  nothing  finer  than  Emerson's 
knowledge  of  the  world,  his  sympathy  with 
young  men  and  with  the  practical  difficulties 
of  applying  his  teachings.  We  can  see  in  his 
early  lectures  before  students  and  mechanics 
how  much  he  had  learned  about  the  structure 
of  society  from  his  own  short  contact  with  the 
organized  church. 

"  Each  finds  a  tender  and  very  intelligent 
conscience  a  disqualification  for  success. 
Each  requires  of  the  practitioner  a  certain 
shutting  of  the  eyes,  a  certain  dapperness 
and  compliance,  an  acceptance  of  customs,  a 
sequestration  from  the  sentiments  of  generos- 
ity and  love,  a  compromise  of  private  opinion 
and  lofty  integrity.  .  .  .  The  fact  that  a  new 
thought  and  hope  have  dawned  in  your  breast, 
should  apprise  you  that  in  the  same  hour  a 
new  light  broke  in  upon  a  thousand  private 
hearts.  .  .  .  And  further  I  will  not  dissemble 
my  hope  that  each  person  whom  I  address  has 
felt  his  own  call  to  cast  aside  all  evil  customs, 
timidity,  and  limitations,  and  to  be  in  his  place 
a  free  and  helpful  man,  a  reformer,  a  bene- 
factor, not  content  to  slip  along  through  the 
world  like  a  footman  or  a  spy,  escaping  by  his 
nimbleness  and  apologies  as  many  knocks  as 
24 


EMERSON 

he  can,  but  a  brave  and  upright  man  who 
must  find  or  cut  a  straight  road  to  every- 
thing excellent  in  the  earth,  and  not  only 
go  honorably  himself,  but  make  it  easier  for 
all  who  follow  him  to  go  in  honor  and  with 
benefit.  .  .  ." 

Beneath  all  lay  a  greater  matter,  —  Emer- 
son's grasp  of  the  forms  and  conditions  of 
progress,  his  reach  of  intellect,  which  could 
afford  fair  play  to  every  one. 

His  lecture  on  The  Conservative  is  not  a 
puzzling  jcn  (V esprit,  like  Bishop  Blougram's 
Apology,  but  an  honest  attempt  to  set  up  the 
opposing  chessmen  of  conservatism  and  reform 
so  as  to  represent  real  life.  Hardly  can  such 
a  brilliant  statement  of  the  case  be  found  else- 
where in  literature.  It  is  not  necessary  to 
quote  here  the  reformer's  side  of  the  question, 
for  Emerson's  whole  life  was  devoted  to  it. 
The  conservatives'  attitude  he  gives  with  such 
accuracy  and  such  justice  that  the  very  bank- 
ers of  State  Street  seem  to  be  speaking :  — 

"  The  order  of  things  is  as  good  as  the 
character  of  the  population  permits.  Con- 
sider it  as  the  work  of  a  great  and  beneficent 
and  progressive  necessity,  which,  from  the 
first  pulsation  in  the  first  animal  life  up  to  the 
present  high  culture  of  the  best  nations,  has 
advanced  thus  far.  .  .  . 
25 


EMERSON 

"  The  conservative  party  in  the  universe 
concedes  that  the  radical  would  talk  suffi- 
ciently to  the  purpose  if  we  were  still  in  the 
garden  of  Eden ;  he  legislates  for  man  as  he 
ought  to  be ;  his  theory  is  right,  but  he 
makes  no  allowance  for  friction,  and  this 
omission  makes  his  whole  doctrine  false. 
The  idealist  retorts  that  the  conservative  falls 
into  a  far  more  noxious  error  in  the  other 
extreme.  The  conservative  assumes  sickness 
as  a  necessity,  and  his  social  frame  is  a  hos- 
pital, his  total  legislation  is  for  the  present 
distress,  a  universe  in  slippers  and  flannels, 
with  bib  and  pap-spoon,  swallowing  pills  and 
herb  tea.  Sickness  gets  organized  as  well  as 
health,  the  vice  as  well  as  the  virtue." 

It  is  unnecessary  to  go,  one  by  one,  through 
the  familiar  essays  and  lectures  which  Emer- 
son published  between  1838  and  1875.  They 
are  in  everybody's  hands  and  in  everybody's 
thoughts.  In  1840  he  wrote  in  his  diary: 
"  In  all  my  lectures  I  have  taught  one  doc- 
trine, namely,  the  infinitude  of  the  private 
man.  This  the  people  accept  readily  enough, 
and  even  with  commendation,  as  long  as  I 
call  the  lecture  Art  or  Politics,  or  Literature 
or  the  Household ;  but  the  moment  I  call  it 
Religion  they  are  shocked,  though  it  be  only 
the  application  of  the  same  truth  which  they 
26 


EMERSON 

receive  elsewhere  to  a  new  class  of  facts." 
To  the  platform  he  returned,  and  left  it  only 
once  or  twice  during  the  remainder  of  his 
life. 

His  writings  vary  in  coherence.  In  his 
early  occasional  pieces,  like  the  Phi  Beta 
Kappa  address,  coherence  is  at  a  maximum. 
They  were  written  for  a  purpose,  and  were 
perhaps  struck  off  all  at  once.  But  he  earned 
his  living  by  lecturing,  and  a  lecturer  is 
always  recasting  his  work  and  using  it  in  dif- 
ferent forms.  A  lecturer  has  no  prejudice 
against  repetition.  It  is  noticeable  that  in 
some  of  Emerson's  important  lectures  the 
logical  scheme  is  more  perfect  than  in  his 
essays.  The  truth  seems  to  be  that  in  the 
process  of  working  up  and  perfecting  his 
writings,  in  revising  and  filing  his  sentences, 
the  logical  scheme  became  more  and  more 
obliterated.  Another  circumstance  helped 
make  his  style  fragmentary.  He  was  by 
nature  a  man  of  inspirations  and  exalted 
moods.  He  was  subject  to  ecstasies,  during 
which  his  mind  worked  with  phenomenal 
brilliancy.  Throughout  his  works  and  in  his 
diary  we  find  constant  reference  to  these 
moods,  and  to  his  own  inability  to  control  or 
recover  them.  "  But  what  we  want  is  con- 
secutiveness.  'T  is  with  us  a  flash  of  light, 
27 


EMERSON 

then  a  long  darkness,  then  a  flash  again.  Ah  ! 
could  we  turn  these  fugitive  sparkles  into  an 
astronomy  of  Copernican  worlds  !  " 

In  order  to  take  advantage  of  these  periods 
of  divination,  he  used  to  write  down  the 
thoughts  that  came  to  him  at  such  times. 
From  boyhood  onward  he  kept  journals  and 
commonplace  books,  and  in  the  course  of  his 
reading  and  meditation  he  collected  innumer- 
able notes  and  quotations  which  he  indexed 
for  ready  use.  In  these  mines  he  "  quarried," 
as  Mr.  Cabot  says,  for  his  lectures  and  essays. 
When  he  needed  a  lecture  he  went  to  the 
repository,  threw  together  what  seemed  to 
have  a  bearing  on  some  subject,  and  gave  it  a 
title.  If  any  other  man  should  adopt  this 
method  of  composition,  the  result  would  be  in- 
comprehensible chaos ;  because  most  men 
have  many  interests,  many  moods,  many  and 
conflicting  ideas.  But  with  Emerson  it  was 
otherwise.  There  was  only  one  thought 
which  could  set  him  aflame,  and  that  was  the 
thought  of  the  unfathomed  might  of  man. 
This  thought  was  his  religion,  his  politics,  his 
ethics,  his  philosophy.  One  moment  of  in- 
spiration was  in  him  own  brother  to  the  next 
moment  of  inspiration,  although  they  might 
be  separated  by  six  weeks.  When  he  came 
to  put  together  his  star-born  ideas,  they  fitted 
28 


EMERSON 

well,  no  matter  in  what  order  he  placed  them, 
because  they  were  all  part  of  the  same  idea. 

His  works  are  all  one  single  attack  on  the 
vice  of  the  age,  moral  cowardice.  He  assails 
it  not  by  railings  and  scorn,  but  by  positive 
and  stimulating  suggestion.  The  imagination 
of  the  reader  is  touched  by  every  device  which 
can  awake  the  admiration  for  heroism,  the 
consciousness  of  moral  courage.  Wit,  quo- 
tation, anecdote,  eloquence,  exhortation,  rhet- 
oric, sarcasm,  and  very  rarely  denunciation, 
are  launched  at  the  reader,  till  he  feels  little 
lambent  flames  beginning  to  kindle  in  him. 
He  is  perhaps  unable  to  see  the  exact  logical 
connection  between  two  paragraphs  of  an 
essay,  yet  he  feels  they  are  germane.  He 
takes  up  Emerson  tired  and  apathetic,  but 
presently  he  feels  himself  growing  heady  and 
truculent,  strengthened  in  his  most  inward 
vitality,  surprised  to  find  himself  again  master 
in  his  own  house. 

The  difference  between  Emerson  and  the 
other  moralists  is  that  all  these  stimulating 
pictures  and  suggestions  are  not  given  by  him 
in  illustration  of  a  general  proposition.  They 
have  never  been  through  the  mill  of  general- 
ization in  his  own  mind.  He  himself  could 
not  have  told  you  their  logical  bearing  on 
one  another.  They  have  all  the  vividness  of 
29 


EMERSON 

disconnected  fragments  of  life,  and  yet  they 
all  throw  light  on  one  another,  like  the  facets 
of  a  jewel.  But  whatever  cause  it  was  that 
led  him  to  adopt  his  method  of  writing,  it  is 
certain  that  he  succeeded  in  delivering  him- 
self of  his  thought  with  an  initial  velocity  and 
carrying  power  such  as  few  men  ever  attained. 
He  has  the  force  at  his  command  of  the 
thrower  of  the  discus. 

His  style  is  American,  and  beats  with  the 
pulse  of  the  climate.  He  is  the  only  writer 
we  have  had  who  writes  as  he  speaks,  who 
makes  no  literary  parade,  has  no  pretensions 
of  any  sort.  He  is  the  only  writer  we  have 
had  who  has  wholly  subdued  his  vehicle  to 
his  temperament.  It  is  impossible  to  name 
his  style  without  naming  his  character :  they 
are  one  thing. 

Both  in  language  and  in  elocution  Emerson 
was  a  practised  and  consummate  artist,  who 
knew  how  both  to  command  his  effects  and  to 
conceal  his  means.  The  casual,  practical, 
disarming  directness  with  which  he  writes 
puts  any  honest  man  at  his  mercy.  What 
difference  does  it  make  whether  a  man  who 
can  talk  like  this  is  following  an  argument  or 
not  ?  You  cannot  always  see  Emerson 
clearly ;  he  is  hidden  by  a  high  wall ;  but 
you  always  know  exactly  on  what  spot  he  is 
3° 


EMERSON 

standing.  You  judge  it  by  the  flight  of  the 
objects  he  throws  over  the  wall,  —  a  bootjack, 
an  apple,  a  crown,  a  razor,  a  volume  of  verse. 
With  one  or  other  of  these  missiles,  all  de- 
livered with  a  very  tolerable  aim,  he  is  pretty 
sure  to  hit  you.  These  catchwords  stick  in 
the  mind.  People  are  not  in  general  influ- 
enced by  long  books  or  discourses,  but  by 
odd  fragments  of  observation  which  they 
overhear,  sentences  or  head-lines  which  they 
read  while  turning  over  a  book  at  random  or 
while  waiting  for  dinner  to  be  announced. 
These  are  the  oracles  and  orphic  words  that 
get  lodged  in  the  mind  and  bend  a  man's 
most  stubborn  will.  Emerson  called  them 
the  Police  of  the  Universe.  His  works  are  a 
treasury  of  such  things.  They  sparkle  in  the 
mine,  or  you  may  carry  them  off  in  your 
pocket.  They  get  driven  into  your  mind  like 
nails,  and  on  them  catch  and  hang  your  own 
experiences,  till  what  was  once  his  thought 
has  become  your  character. 

"  God  offers  to  every  mind  its  choice  be- 
tween truth  and  repose.  Take  which  you 
please ;  you  can  never  have  both."  "  Dis- 
content is  want  of  self-reliance ;  it  is  infirmity 
of  will."  "  It  is  impossible  for  a  man  to  be 
cheated  by  any  one  but  himself." 

The  orchestration  with  which  Emerson  in- 
3i 


EMERSON 

troduces  and  sustains  these  notes  from  the 
spheres  is  as  remarkable  as  the  winged  things 
themselves.  Open  his  works  at  a  hazard. 
You  hear  a  man  talking. 

"  A  garden  is  like  those  pernicious  machin- 
eries we  read  of  every  month  in  the  news- 
papers, which  catch  a  man's  coat-skirt  or  his 
hand,  and  draw  in  his  arm,  his  leg,  and  his 
whole  body  to  irresistible  destruction.  In  an 
evil  hour  he  pulled  down  his  wall  and  added 
a  field  to  his  homestead.  No  land  is  bad,  but 
land  is  worse.  If  a  man  own  land,  the  land 
owns  him.  Now  let  him  leave  home  if  he 
dare.  Every  tree  and  graft,  every  hill  of 
melons,  row  of  corn,  or  quickset  hedge,  all  he 
has  done  and  all  he  means  to  do,  stand  in  his 
way  like  duns,  when  he  would  go  out  of  his 
gate." 

Your  attention  is  arrested  by  the  reality  of 
this  gentleman  in  his  garden,  by  the  first-hand 
quality  of  his  mind.  It  matters  not  on  what 
subject  he  talks.  While  you  are  musing, 
still  pleased  and  patronizing,  he  has  picked 
up  the  bow  of  Ulysses,  bent  it  with  the 
ease  of  Ulysses,  and  sent  a  shaft  clear  through 
the  twelve  axes,  nor  missed  one  of  them. 
But  this,  it  seems,  was  mere  byplay  and 
marksmanship ;  for  before  you  have  done 
wondering,  Ulysses  rises  to  his  feet  in  anger, 
32 


EMERSON 

and  pours  flight  after  flight,  arrow  after  arrow, 
from  the  great  bow.  The  shafts  sing  and 
strike,  the  suitors  fall  in  heaps.  The  brow  of 
Ulysses  shines  with  unearthly  splendor.  The 
air  is  filled  with  lightning.  After  a  little, 
without  shock  or  transition,  without  apparent 
change  of  tone,  Mr.  Emerson  is  offering  you 
a  biscuit  before  you  leave,  and  bidding  you 
mind  the  last  step  at  the  garden  end.  If  the 
man  who  can  do  these  things  be  not  an  artist, 
then  must  we  have  a  new  vocabulary  and  re- 
name the  professions. 

There  is,  in  all  this  effectiveness  of  Emer- 
son, no  pose,  no  literary  art;  nothing  that 
corresponds  even  remotely  to  the  pretended 
modesty  and  ignorance  with  which  Socrates 
lays  pitfalls  for  our  admiration  in  Plato's 
dialogues. 

It  was  the  platform  which  determined  Em- 
erson's style.  He  was  not  a  writer,  but  a 
speaker.  On  the  platform  his  manner  of 
speech  was  a  living  part  of  his  words.  The 
pauses  and  hesitation,  the  abstraction,  the 
searching,  the  balancing,  the  turning  forward 
and  back  of  the  leaves  of  his  lecture,  and  then 
the  discovery,  the  illumination,  the  gleam  of 
lightning  which  you  saw  before  your  eyes  de- 
scend into  a  man  of  genius,  —  all  this  was 
Emerson.  He  invented  this  style  of  speak- 
3  33 


EMERSON 

ing,  and  made  it  express  the  supersensuous, 
the  incommunicable.  Lowell  wrote,  while 
still  under  the  spell  of  the  magician :  "  Em- 
erson's oration  was  more  disjointed  than 
usual,  even  with  him.  It  began  nowhere,  and 
ended  everywhere,  and  yet,  as  always  with 
that  divine  man,  it  left  you  feeling  that  some- 
thing beautiful  had  passed  that  way,  some- 
thing more  beautiful  than  anything  else,  like 
the  rising  and  setting  of  stars.  Every  pos- 
sible criticism  might  have  been  made  on  it 
but  one,  —  that  it  was  not  noble.  There  was 
a  tone  in  it  that  awakened  all  elevating  asso- 
ciations. He  boggled,  he  lost  his  place,  he 
had  to  put  on  his  glasses;  but  it  was  as  if  a 
creature  from  some  fairer  world  had  lost  his 
way  in  our  fogs,  and  it  was  our  fault,  not  his. 
It  was  chaotic,  but  it  was  all  such  stuff  as 
stars  are  made  of,  and  you  could  n't  help  feel- 
ing that,  if  you  waited  awhile,  all  that  was 
nebulous  would  be  whirled  into  planets,  and 
would  assume  the  mathematical  gravity  of 
system.  All  through  it  I  felt  something  in 
me  that  cried,  '  Ha  !  ha  ! '  to  the  sound  of  the 
trumpets." 

It  is  nothing  for  any  man  sitting  in  his  chair 
to  be  overcome  with  the  sense  of  the  immedi- 
acy of  life,  to  feel  the  spur  of  courage,  the 
victory   of  good    over   evil,  the   value,   now 
34 


EMERSON 

and  forever,  of  all  great-hearted  endeavor. 
Such  moments  come  to  us  all.  But  for  a  man 
to  sit  in  his  chair  and  write  what  shall  call  up 
these  forces  in  the  bosoms  of  others  —  that  is 
desert,  that  is  greatness.  To  do  this  was  the 
gift  of  Emerson.  The  whole  earth  is  enriched 
by  every  moment  of  converse  with  him.  The 
shows  and  shams  of  life  become  transparent, 
the  lost  kingdoms  are  brought  back,  the  shut- 
ters of  the  spirit  are  opened,  and  provinces 
and  realms  of  our  own  existence  lie  gleaming 
before  us. 

It  has  been  necessary  to  reduce  the  living 
soul  of  Emerson  to  mere  dead  attributes  like 
"  moral  courage  "  in  order  that  we  might  talk 
about  him  at  all.  His  effectiveness  comes 
from  his  character ;  not  from  his  philosophy, 
nor  from  his  rhetoric  nor  his  wit,  nor  from 
any  of  the  accidents  of  his  education.  He 
might  never  have  heard  of  Berkeley  or  Plato. 
A  slightly  different  education  might  have  led 
him  to  throw  his  teaching  into  the  form  of 
historical  essays  or  of  stump  speeches.  He 
might,  perhaps,  have  been  bred  a  stone- 
mason, and  have  done  his  work  in  the  world 
by  travelling  with  a  panorama.  But  he  would 
always  have  been  Emerson.  His  weight  and 
his  power  would  always  have  been  the 
same.  It  is  solely  as  character  that  he 
35 


EMERSON 

is  important.  He  discovered  nothing;  he 
bears  no  relation  whatever  to  the  history  of 
philosophy.  We  must  regard  him  and  deal 
with  him  simply  as  a  man. 

Strangely  enough,  the  world  has  always 
insisted  upon  accepting  him  as  a  thinker: 
and  hence  a  great  coil  of  misunderstanding. 
As  a  thinker,  Emerson  is  difficult  to  classify. 
Before  you  begin  to  assign  him  a  place,  you 
must  clear  the  ground  by  a  disquisition  as  to 
what  is  meant  by  "a  thinker,"  and  how 
Emerson  differs  from  other  thinkers.  As  a 
man,  Emerson  is  as  plain  as  Ben  Franklin. 
r-  People  have  accused  him  of  inconsistency; 
they  say  that  he  teaches  one  thing  one  day, 
and  another  the  next  day.  But  from  the  point 
of  view  of  Emerson  there  is  no  such  thing  as 
inconsistency.  Every  man  is  each  day  a  new 
man.  Let  him  be  to-day  what  he  is  to-day. 
It  is  immaterial  and  waste  of  time  to  consider 
what  he  once  was  or  what  he  may  be. 

His  picturesque  speech  delights  in  fact  and 
anecdote,  and  a  public  which  is  used  to  treat- 
ises and  deduction  cares  always  to  be  told 
the  moral.  It  wants  everything  reduced  to 
a  generalization.  All  generalizations  are 
partial  truths,  but  we  are  used  to  them,  and 
we  ourselves  mentally  make  the  proper  allow- 
ance. Emerson's  method  is,  not  to  give  a 
36 


EMERSON 

generalization  and  trust  to  our  making  the 
allowance,  but  to  give  two  conflicting  state- 
ments and  leave  the  balance  of  truth  to  be 
struck  in  our  own  minds  on  the  facts.  There 
is  no  inconsistency  in  this.  It  is  a  vivid  and 
very  legitimate  method  of  procedure.  But 
he  is  much  more  than  a  theorist:  he  is  a 
practitioner.  He  does  not  merely  state  a 
theory  of  agitation :  he  proceeds  to  agitate. 
"  Do  not,"  he  says,  "  set  the  least  value  on 
what  I  do,  or  the  least  discredit  on  what  I  do 
not,  as  if  I  pretended  to  settle  anything  as 
false  or  true.  I  unsettle  all  things.  No  facts 
are  to  me  sacred,  none  are  profane.  I  simply 
experiment,  an  endless  seeker  with  no  past  at 
my  back."  He  was  not  engaged  in  teaching 
many  things,  but  one  thing,  —  Courage. 
Sometimes  he  inspires  it  by  pointing  to  great 
characters,  —  Fox,  Milton,  Alcibiades ;  some- 
times he  inspires  it  by  bidding  us  beware  of 
imitating  such  men,  and,  in  the  ardor  of  his 
rhetoric,  even  seems  to  regard  them  as  hin- 
drances and  dangers  to  our  development. 
There  is  no  inconsistency  here.  Emerson 
might  logically  have  gone  one  step  further  and 
raised  inconsistency  into  a  jewel.  For  what 
is  so  useful,  so  educational,  so  inspiring,  to  a 
timid  and  conservative  man,  as  to  do  some- 
thing inconsistent  and  regrettable?  It  lends 
37 


EMERSON 

character  to  him  at  once.  He  breathes  freer 
and  is  stronger  for  the  experience. 

Emerson  is  no  cosmopolitan.  He  is  a 
patriot.  He  is  not  like  Goethe,  whose  sym- 
pathies did  not  run  on  national  lines.  Emer- 
son has  America  in  his  mind's  eye  all  the 
time.  There  is  to  be  a  new  religion,  and  it  is 
to  come  from  America ;  a  new  and  better  type 
of  man,  and  he  is  to  be  an  American.  He 
not  only  cared  little  or  nothing  for  Europe, 
but  he  cared  not  much  for  the  world  at  large. 
His  thought  was  for  the  future  of  this  country. 
You  cannot  get  into  any  chamber  in  his  mind 
which  is  below  this  chamber  of  patriotism. 
He  loves  the  valor  of  Alexander  and  the 
grace  of  the  Oxford  athlete;  but  he  loves 
them  not  for  themselves.  He  has  a  use  for 
them.  They  are  grist  to  his  mill  and  powder 
to  his  gun.  His  admiration  of  them  he  sub- 
ordinates to  his  main  purpose,  —  they  are  his 
blackboard  and  diagrams.  His  patriotism  is 
the  backbone  of  his  significance.  He  came  to 
his  countrymen  at  a  time  when  they  lacked, 
not  thoughts,  but  manliness.  The  needs  of 
his  own  particular  public  are  always  before 
him. 

"  It  is  odd  that  our  people  should  have,  not 
water  on  the  brain,  but  a  little  gas  there.  A 
shrewd  foreigner  said  of  the  Americans  that 
38 


EMERSON 

'  whatever  they  say  has   a  little  the  air  of  a 
speech.'  " 

"  I  shall  not  need  to  go  into  an  enumera- 
tion of  our  national  defects  and  vices  which 
require  this  Order  of  Censors  in  the  State.  .  .  . 
The  timidity  of  our  public  opinion  is  our  dis- 
ease, or,  shall  I  say,  the  publicness  of  opinion, 
the  absence  of  private  opinion." 

"  Our  measure  of  success  is  the  moderation 
and  low  level  of  an  individual's  judgment. 
Dr.  Channing's  piety  and  wisdom  had  such 
weight  in  Boston  that  the  popular  idea  of 
religion  was  whatever  this  eminent  divine 
held." 

"  Let  us  affront  and  reprimand  the  smooth 
mediocrity,  the  squalid  contentment  of  the 
times." 

The  politicians  he  scores  constantly. 

"  Who  that  sees  the  meanness  of  our  politics 
but  congratulates  Washington  that  he  is 
long  already  wrapped  in  his  shroud  and  forever 
safe."  The  following  is  his  description  of  the 
social  world  of  his  day :  "  If  any  man  consider 
the  present  aspects  of  what  is  called  by  dis- 
tinction society,  he  will  see  the  need  of  these 
ethics.  The  sinew  and  heart  of  man  seem  to 
be  drawn  out,  and  we  are  become  timorous, 
desponding  whimperers." 

It  is  the  same  wherever  we  open  his  books. 
32 


EMERSON 

He  must  spur  on,  feed  up,  bring  forward  the 
dormant  character  of  his  countrymen.  When 
he  goes  to  England,  he  sees  in  English  life 
nothing  except  those  elements  which  are  de- 
ficient in  American  life.  If  you  wish  a  cata- 
logue of  what  America  has  not,  read  English 
Traits.  Emerson's  patriotism  had  the  effect 
of  expanding  his  philosophy.  To-day  we 
know  the  value  of  physique,  for  science  has 
taught  it,  but  it  was  hardly  discovered  in  his 
day,  and  his  philosophy  affords  no  basis  for 
it.  Emerson  in  this  matter  transcends  his 
philosophy.  When  in  England,  he  was 
fairly  made  drunk  with  the  physical  life  he 
found  there.  He  is  like  Caspar  Hauser  gaz- 
ing for  the  first  time  on  green  fields.  English 
Traits  is  the  ruddiest  book  he  ever  wrote.  It 
is  a  hymn  to  force,  honesty,  and  physical 
well-being,  and  ends  with  the  dominant  note 
of  his  belief:  "  By  this  general  activity  and  by 
this  sacredness  of  individuals,  they  [the  Eng- 
lish] have  in  seven  hundred  years  evolved  the 
principles  of  freedom.  It  is  the  land  of 
patriots,  martyrs,  sages,  and  bards,  and  if  the 
ocean  out  of  which  it  emerged  should  wash 
it  away,  it  will  be  remembered  as  an  island 
famous  for  immortal  laws,  for  the  announce- 
ments of  original  right  which  make  the  stone 
tables  of  liberty."  He  had  found  in  England 
40 


EMERSON 

free  speech,  personal  courage,  and  reverence 
for  the  individual. 

No  convulsion  could  shake  Emerson  or 
make  his  view  unsteady  even  for  an  instant. 
What  no  one  else  saw,  he  saw,  and  he  saw 
nothing  else.  Not  a  boy  in  the  land  wel- 
comed the  outbreak  of  the  war  so  fiercely  as 
did  this  shy  village  philosopher,  then  at  the 
age  of  fifty-eight.  He  saw  that  war  was  the 
cure  for  cowardice,  moral  as  well  as  physical. 
It  was  not  the  cause  of  the  slave  that  moved 
him ;  it  was  not  the  cause  of  the  Union  for 
which  he  cared  a  farthing.  It  was  something 
deeper  than  either  of  these  things  for  which 
he  had  been  battling  all  his  life.  It  was  the 
cause  of  character  against  convention.  What- 
ever else  the  war  might  bring,  it  was  sure  to 
bring  in  character,  to  leave  behind  it  a  file  of 
heroes ;  if  not  heroes,  then  villains,  but  in 
any  case  strong  men.  On  the  9th  of  April, 
1 86 1,  three  days  before  Fort  Sumter  was 
bombarded,  he  had  spoken  with  equanimity 
of  "the  downfall  of  our  character-destroying 
civilization.  .  .  .  We  find  that  civilization 
crowed  too  soon,  that  our  triumphs  were 
treacheries ;  we  had  opened  the  wrong  door 
and  let  the  enemy  into  the  castle." 

"  Ah,"  he  said,  when  the  firing  began, 
"  sometimes  gunpowder  smells  good."  Soon 
41 


EMERSON 

after  the  attack  on  Sumter  he  said  in  a  public 
address,  "  We  have  been  very  homeless  for 
some  years  past,  say  since  1850;  but  now  we 
have  a  country  again.  .  .  .  The  war  was  an 
eye-opener,  and  showed  men  of  all  parties 
and  opinions  the  value  of  those  primary 
forces  that  lie  beneath  all  political  action." 
And  it  was  almost  a  personal  pledge  when 
he  said  at  the  Harvard  Commemoration  in 
1865,  "We  shall  not  again  disparage  Amer- 
ica, now  that  we  have  seen  what  men  it  will 
bear." 

The  place  which  Emerson  forever  occupies 
as  a  great  critic  is  denned  by  the  same  sharp 
outlines  that  mark  his  work,  in  whatever  light 
and  from  whatever  side  we  approach  it.  A 
critic  in  the  modern  sense  he  was  not,  for  his 
point  of  view  is  fixed,  and  he  reviews  the 
world  like  a  search-light  placed  on  the  top  of 
a  tall  tower.  He  lived  too  early  and  at  too 
great  a  distance  from  the  forum  of  European 
thought  to  absorb  the  ideas  of  evolution  and 
give  place  to  them  in  his  philosophy.  Evolu- 
tion does  not  graft  well  upon  the  Platonic 
Idealism,  nor  are  physiology  and  the  kindred 
sciences  sympathetic.  Nothing  aroused  Em- 
erson's indignation  more  than  the  attempts  of 
the  medical  faculty  and  of  phrenologists  to 
classify,  and  therefore  limit  individuals.  "  The 
42 


EMERSON 

grossest  ignorance  does  not  disgust  me  like 
this  ignorant  knowingness." 

We  miss  in  Emerson  the  underlying  con- 
ception of  growth,  of  development,  so  charac- 
teristic of  the  thought  of  our  own  day,  and 
which,  for  instance,  is  found  everywhere 
latent  in  Browning's  poetry.  Browning  re- 
gards character  as  the  result  of  experience 
and  as  an  ever  changing  growth.  To  Emer- 
son, character  is  rather  an  entity  complete 
and  eternal  from  the  beginning.  He  is  prob- 
ably the  last  great  writer  to  look  at  life  from 
a  stationary  standpoint.  There  is  a  certain 
lack  of  the  historic  sense  in  all  he  has  written. 
The  ethical  assumption  that  all  men  are- 
exactly  alike  permeates  his  work.  In  his 
mind,  Socrates,  Marco  Polo,  and  General 
Jackson  stand  surrounded  by  the  same  atmos- 
phere, or  rather  stand  as  mere  naked  charac- 
ters surrounded  by  no  atmosphere  at  all.  He 
is  probably  the  last  great  writer  who  will  fling 
about  classic  anecdotes  as  if  they  were  club 
gossip.  In  the  discussion  of  morals,  this 
assumption  does  little  harm.  The  stories  and 
proverbs  which  illustrate  the  thought  of  the 
moralist  generally  concern  only  those  simple 
relations  of  life  which  are  common  to  all 
ages.  There  is  charm  in  this  familiar  dealing 
with  antiquity.  The  classics  are  thus  domes- 
43 


EMERSON 

ticated  and  made  real  to  us.  What  matter  if 
iEsop  appear  a  little  too  much  like  an  Ameri- 
can citizen,  so  long  as  his  points  tell  ? 

It  is  in  Emerson's  treatment  of  the  fine  arts 
that  we  begin  to  notice  his  want  of  historic 
sense.  Art  endeavors  to  express  subtle  and 
ever  changing  feelings  by  means  of  conven- 
tions which  are  as  protean  as  the  forms  of  a 
cloud ;  and  the  man  who  in  speaking  on  the 
plastic  arts  makes  the  assumption  that  all 
men  are  alike  will  reveal  before  he  has  uttered 
three  sentences  that  he  does  not  know  what 
art  is,  that  he  has  never  experienced  any  form 
of  sensation  from  it.  Emerson  lived  in  a 
time  and  clime  where  there  was  no  plastic  art, 
and  he  was  obliged  to  arrive  at  his  ideas 
about  art  by  means  of  a  highly  complex  pro- 
cess of  reasoning.  He  dwelt  constantly  in  a 
spiritual  place  which  was  the  very  focus  of 
high  moral  fervor.  This  was  his  enthusiasm, 
this  was  his  revelation,  and  from  it  he  reasoned 
out  the  probable  meaning  of  the  fine  arts. 
"  This,"  thought  Emerson,  his  eye  rolling  in 
a  fine  frenzy  of  moral  feeling,  "  this  must  be 
what  Apelles  experienced,  this  fervor  is  the 
passion  of  Bramante.  I  understand  the  Par- 
thenon." And  so  he  projected  his  feelings 
about  morality  into  the  field  of  the  plastic  arts. 
He  deals  very  freely  and  rather  indiscrimi- 
44 


EMERSON 

nately  with  the  names  of  artists,  —  Phidias, 
Raphael,  Salvator  Rosa,  —  and  he  speaks 
always  in  such  a  way  that  it  is  impossible  to 
connect  what  he  says  with  any  impression  we 
have  ever  received  from  the  works  of  those 
masters. 

In  fact,  Emerson  has  never  in  his  life  felt 
the  normal  appeal  of  any  painting,  or  any 
sculpture,  or  any  architecture,  or  any  music. 
These  things,  of  which  he  does  not  know  the 
meaning  in  real  life,  he  yet  uses,  and  uses 
constantly,  as  symbols  to  convey  ethical 
truths.  The  result  is  that  his  books  are  full 
of  blind  places,  like  the  notes  which  will  not 
strike  on  a  sick  piano. 

It  is  interesting  to  find  that  the  one  art  of 
which  Emerson  did  have  a  direct  understand- 
ing, the  art  of  poetry,  gave  him  some  insight 
into  the  relation  of  the  artist  to  his  vehicle. 
In  his  essay  on  Shakespeare  there  is  a  full 
recognition  of  the  debt  of  Shakespeare  to  his 
times.  This  essay  is  filled  with  the  historic 
sense.  We  ought  not  to  accuse  Emerson 
because  he  lacked  appreciation  of  the  fine 
arts,  but  rather  admire  the  truly  Goethean 
spirit  in  which  he  insisted  upon  the  reality  of 
arts  of  which  he  had  no  understanding.  This 
is  the  same  spirit  which  led  him  to  insist 
on  the  value  of  the  Eastern  poets.  Perhaps 
45 


EMERSON 

there  exist  a  few  scholars  who  can  tell  us  how 
far  Emerson  understood  or  misunderstood 
Saadi  and  Firdusi  and  the  Koran.  But  we 
need  not  be  disturbed  for  his  learning.  It  is 
enough  that  he  makes  us  recognize  that  these 
men  were  men  too,  and  that  their  writings 
mean  something  not  unknowable  to  us.  The 
East  added  nothing  to  Emerson,  but  gave 
him  a  few  trappings  of  speech.  The  whole  of 
his  mysticism  is  to  be  found  in  Nature,  writ- 
ten before  he  knew  the  sages  of  the  Orient, 
and  it  is  not  improbable  that  there  is  some 
real  connection  between  his  own  mysticism 
and  the  mysticism  of  the  Eastern  poets. 

Emerson's  criticism  on  men  and  books  is 
like  the  test  of  a  great  chemist  who  seeks  one 
or  two  elements.  He  burns  a  bit  of  the  stuff 
in  his  incandescent  light,  shows  the  lines  of  it 
in  his  spectrum,  and  there  an  end. 

It  was  a  thought  of  genius  that  led  him 
to  write  Representative  Men.  The  scheme 
of  this  book  gave  play  to  every  illumination 
of  his  mind,  and  it  pinned  him  down  to  the 
objective,  to  the  field  of  vision  under  his 
microscope.  The  table  of  contents  of  Repre- 
sentative Men  is  the  dial  of  his  education.  It 
is  as  follows :  Uses  of  Great  Men ;  Plato,  or 
The  Philosopher;  Plato,  New  Readings; 
Swedenborg,  or  The  Mystic;  Montaigne, 
46 


EMERSON 

or  The  Sceptic;  Shakespeare,  or  The  Poet; 
Napoleon,  or  The  Man  of  the  World  ;  Goethe, 
or  The  Writer.  The  predominance  of  the 
writers  over  all  other  types  of  men  is  not  cited 
to  show  Emerson's  interest  in  The  Writer,  for 
we  know  his  interest  centred  in  the  practical 
man,  —  even  his  ideal  scholar  is  a  practical 
man,  —  but  to  show  the  sources  of  his  illus- 
tration. Emerson's  library  was  the  old-fash- 
ioned gentleman's  library.  His  mines  of 
thought  were  the  world's  classics.  This  is 
one  reason  why  he  so  quickly  gained  an  in- 
ternational currency.  His  very  subjects  in 
Representative  Men  are  of  universal  interest, 
and  he  is  limited  only  by  certain  inevitable 
local  conditions.  Representative  Men  is 
thought  by  many  persons  to  be  his  best 
book.  It  is  certainly  filled  with  the  strokes 
of  a  master.  There  exists  no  more  profound 
criticism  than  Emerson's  analysis  of  Goethe 
and  of  Napoleon,  by  both  of  whom  he  was 
at  once  fascinated  and  repelled. 


47 


EMERSON 


II 


The  attitude  of  Emerson's  mind  toward  re- 
formers results  so  logically  from  his  philos- 
ophy that  it  is  easily  understood.  He  saw 
in  them  people  who  sought  something  as  a 
panacea  or  as  an  end  in  itself.  To  speak 
strictly  and  not  irreverently,  he  had  his  own 
panacea,  —  the  development  of  each  individ- 
ual ;  and  he  was  impatient  of  any  other. 
He  did  not  believe  in  association.  The  very 
idea  of  it  involved  a  surrender  by  the  individ- 
ual of  some  portion  of  his  identity,  and  of 
course  all  the  reformers  worked  through  their 
associations.  With  their  general  aims  he 
sympathized.  "  These  reforms,"  he  wrote, 
"  are  our  contemporaries ;  they  are  ourselves, 
our  own  light  and  sight  and  conscience ;  they 
only  name  the  relation  which  subsists  between 
us  and  the  vicious  institutions  which  they  go 
to  rectify."  But  with  the  methods  of  the  re- 
formers he  had  no  sympathy :  "  He  who  aims 
at  progress  should  aim  at  an  infinite,  not  at 
a  special  benefit.  The  reforms  whose  fame 
now  fills  the  land  with  temperance,  anti- 
slavery,  non-resistance,  no-government,  equal 
43 


EMERSON 

labor,  fair  and  generous  as  each  appears,  are 
poor  bitter  things  when  prosecuted  for  them- 
selves as  an  end."  Again  :  "  The  young  men 
who  have  been  vexing  society  for  these  last 
years  with  regenerative  methods  seem  to  have 
made  this  mistake  :  they  all  exaggerated  some 
special  means,  and  all  failed  to  see  that  the 
reform  of  reforms  must  be  accomplished 
without  means." 

Emerson  did  not  at  first  discriminate  be- 
tween the  movement  of  the  Abolitionists  and 
the  hundred  and  one  other  reform  movements 
of  the  period ;  and  in  this  lack  of  discrimi- 
nation lies  a  point  of  extraordinary  interest. 
The  Abolitionists,  as  it  afterwards  turned  out, 
had  in  fact  got  hold  of  the  issue  which  was  to 
control  the  fortunes  of  the  republic  for  thirty 
years.  The  difference  between  them  and  the 
other  reformers  was  this  :  that  the  Abolition- 
ists were  men  set  in  motion  by  the  primary 
and  unreasoning  passion  of  pity.  Theory 
played  small  part  in  the  movement.  It  grew 
by  the  excitement  which  exhibitions  of  cruelty 
will  arouse  in  the  minds  of  sensitive  people. 

It  is  not  to  be  denied  that  the  social  con- 
ditions in  Boston  in  183 1  foreboded  an 
outbreak  in  some  form.  If  the  abolition 
excitement  had  not  drafted  off  the  rising 
forces,  there  might  have  been  a  Merry  Mount, 
4  49 


EMERSON 

an  epidemic  of  crime  or  insanity,  or  a  mob  of 
some  sort.  The  abolition  movement  afforded 
the  purest  form  of  an  indulgence  in  human 
feeling  that  was  ever  offered  to  men.  It  was 
intoxicating.  It  made  the  agitators  perfectly- 
happy.  They  sang  at  their  work  and  bubbled 
over  with  exhilaration.  They  were  the  only 
people  in  the  United  States,  at  this  time,  who 
were  enjoying  an  exalted,  glorifying,  practical 
activity. 

But  Emerson  at  first  lacked  the  touchstone, 
whether  of  intellect  or  of  heart,  to  see  the 
difference  between  this  particular  movement 
and  the  other  movements  then  in  progress. 
Indeed,  in  so  far  as  he  sees  any  difference 
between  the  Abolitionists  and  the  rest,  it  is 
that  the  Abolitionists  were  more  objectionable 
and  distasteful  to  him.  "  Those,"  he  said, 
"  who  are  urging  with  most  ardor  what  are 
called  the  greatest  benefits  to  mankind  are 
narrow,  conceited,  self-pleasing  men,  and 
affect  us  as  the  insane  do."  And  again  :  "  By 
the  side  of  these  men  [the  idealists]  the  hot 
agitators  have  a  certain  cheap  and  ridiculous 
air ;  they  even  look  smaller  than  others.  Of 
the  two,  I  own  I  like  the  speculators  the  best. 
They  have  some  piety  which  looks  with  faith 
to  a  fair  future  unprofaned  by  rash  and  un- 
equal attempts  to  realize  it."  He  was  drawn 
5o 


EMERSON 

into  the  abolition  cause  by  having  the  truth 
brought  home  to  him  that  these  people  were 
fighting  for  the  Moral  Law.  He  was  slow  in 
seeing  this,  because  in  their  methods  they 
represented  everything  he  most  condemned. 
As  soon,  however,  as  he  was  convinced,  he 
was  ready  to  lecture  for  them  and  to  give 
them  the  weight  of  his  approval.  In  1844 
he  was  already  practically  an  Abolitionist, 
and  his  feelings  upon  the  matter  deepened 
steadily  in  intensity  ever  after. 

The  most  interesting  page  of  Emerson's 
published  journal  is  the  following,  written  at 
some  time  previous  to  1844;  the  exact  date 
is  not  given.  A  like  page,  whether  written 
or  unwritten,  may  be  read  into  the  private 
annals  of  every  man  who  lived  before  the 
war.  Emerson  has,  with  unconscious  mas- 
tery, photographed  the  half-spectre  that 
stalked  in  the  minds  of  all.  He  wrote :  "  I 
had  occasion  to  say  the  other  day  to  Eliza- 
beth Hoar  that  I  like  best  the  strong  and 
worthy  persons,  like  her  father,  who  support 
the  social  order  without  hesitation  or  misgiv- 
ing. I  like  these;  they  never  incommode 
us  by  exciting  grief,  pity,  or  perturbation  of 
any  sort.  But  the  professed  philanthropists, 
it  is  strange  and  horrible  to  say,  are  an  alto- 
gether odious  set  of  people,  whom  one  would 
51 


EMERSON 

shun  as  the  worst  of  bores  and  canters.  But 
my  conscience,  my  unhappy  conscience  re- 
spects that  hapless  class  who  see  the  faults 
and  stains  of  our  social  order,  and  who  pray 
and  strive  incessantly  to  right  the  wrong;  this 
annoying  class  of  men  and  women,  though 
they  commonly  find  the  work  altogether  be- 
yond their  faculty,  and  their  results  are,  for 
the  present,  distressing.  They  are  partial, 
and  apt  to  magnify  their  own.  Yes,  and  the 
prostrate  penitent,  also,  —  he  is  not  compre- 
hensive, he  is  not  philosophical  in  those  tears 
and  groans.  Yet  I  feel  that  under  him  and 
his  partiality  and  exclusiveness  is  the  earth 
and  the  sea  and  all  that  in  them  is,  and  the 
axis  around  which  the  universe  revolves 
passes  through  his  body  where  he  stands." 

It  was  the  defection  of  Daniel  Webster  that 
completed  the  conversion  of  Emerson  and 
turned  him  from  an  adherent  into  a  propa- 
gandist of  abolition.  Not  pity  for  the  slave, 
but  indignation  at  the  violation  of  the  Moral 
Law  by  Daniel  Webster,  was  at  the  bottom 
of  Emerson's  anger.  His  abolitionism  was 
secondary  to  his  main  mission,  his  main  en- 
thusiasm. It  is  for  this  reason  that  he  stands 
on  a  plane  of  intellect  where  he  might,  under 
other  circumstances,  have  met  and  defeated 
Webster.  After  the  7th  of  March,  1850,  he 
52 


EMERSON 

recognized  in  Webster  the  embodiment  of  all 
that  he  hated.  In  his  attacks  on  Webster, 
Emerson  trembles  to  his  inmost  fibre  with 
antagonism.  He  is  savage,  destructive, 
personal,  bent  on  death. 

This  exhibition  of  Emerson  as  a  fighting 
animal  is  magnificent,  and  explains  his  life. 
There  is  no  other  instance  of  his  ferocity. 
No  other  nature  but  Webster's  ever  so  moved 
him;  but  it  was  time  -to  be  moved,  and 
Webster  was  a  man  of  his  size.  Had  these 
two  great  men  of  New  England  been  matched 
in  training  as  they  were  matched  in  en- 
dowment, and  had  they  then  faced  each 
other  in  debate,  they  would  not  have  been 
found  to  differ  so  greatly  in  power.  Their 
natures  were  electrically  repellent,  but  from 
which  did  the  greater  force  radiate?  Their 
education  differed  so  radically  that  it  is  im- 
possible to  compare  them,  but  if  you  trans- 
late the  Phi  Beta  Kappa  address  into  politics, 
you  have  something  stronger  than  Webster, 
—  something  that  recalls  Chatham ;  and 
Emerson  would  have  had  this  advantage,  — 
that  he  was  not  afraid.  As  it  was,  he  left  his 
library  and  took  the  stump.  Mr.  Cabot  has 
given  us  extracts  from  his  speeches :  — 

"  The  tameness  is  indeed  complete  ;  all  are 
involved  in  one  hot  haste  of  terror, — presi- 
53 


EMERSON 

dents  of  colleges  and  professors,  saints  and 
brokers,  lawyers  and  manufacturers;  not  a 
liberal  recollection,  not  so  much  as  a  snatch 
of  an  old  song  for  freedom,  dares  intrude  on 
their  passive  obedience.  .  .  .  Mr.  Webster, 
perhaps,  is  only  following  the  laws  of  his 
blood  and  constitution.  I  suppose  his 
pledges  were  not  quite  natural  to  him.  He 
is  a  man  who  lives  by  his  memory;  a  man 
of  the  past,  not  a  man  of  faith  and  of  hope. 
All  the  drops  of  his  blood  have  eyes  that 
look  downward,  and  his  finely  developed 
understanding  only  works  truly  and  with  all 
its  force  when  it  stands  for  animal  good ;  that 
is,  for  property.  He  looks  at  the  Union  as 
an  estate,  a  large  farm,  and  is  excellent  in  the 
completeness  of  his  defence  of  it  so  far. 
What  he  finds  already  written  he  will  defend. 
Lucky  that  so  much  had  got  well  written 
when  he  came,  for  he  has  no  faith  in  the 
power  of  self-government.  Not  the  smallest 
municipal  provision,  if  it  were  new,  would 
receive  his  sanction.  In  Massachusetts,  in 
1776,  he  would,  beyond  all  question,  have 
been  a  refugee.  He  praises  Adams  and  Jef- 
ferson, but  it  is  a  past  Adams  and  Jefferson. 
A  present  Adams  or  Jefferson  he  would  de- 
nounce. .  .  .  But  one  thing  appears  certain 
to  me :  that  the  Union  is  at  an  end  as  soon  as 
54 


EMERSON 

an  immoral  law  is  enacted.  He  who  writes  a 
crime  into  the  statute  book  digs  under  the 
foundations  of  the  Capitol.  .  .  .  The  words 
of  John  Randolph,  wiser  than  he  knew,  have 
been  ringing  ominously  in  all  echoes  for 
thirty  years :  '  We  do  not  govern  the  people 
of  the  North  by  our  black  slaves,  but  by  their 
own  white  slaves.'  .  .  .  They  come  down 
now  like  the  cry  of  fate,  in  the  moment  when 
they  are  fulfilled." 

The  exasperation  of  Emerson  did  not  sub- 
side, but  went  on  increasing  during  the  next 
four  years,  and  on  March  7,  1854,  he  read  his 
lecture  on  the  Fugitive  Slave  Law  at  the  New 
York  Tabernacle :  "  I  have  lived  all  my  life 
without  suffering  any  inconvenience  from 
American  Slavery.  I  never  saw  it ;  I  never 
heard  the  whip ;  I  never  felt  the  check  on  my 
free  speech  and  action,  until  the  other  day, 
when  Mr.  Webster,  by  his  personal  influence, 
brought  the  Fugitive  Slave  Law  on  the  coun- 
try. I  say  Mr.  Webster,  for  though  the  bill 
was  not  his,  it  is  yet  notorious  that  he  was  the 
life  and  soul  of  it,  that  he  gave  it  all  he  had. 
It  cost  him  his  life,  and  under  the  shadow  of 
his  great  name  inferior  men  sheltered  them- 
selves, threw  their  ballots  for  it,  and  made 
the  law.  .  .  .  Nobody  doubts  that  Daniel 
Webster  could  make  a  good  speech.  No- 
55 


EMERSON 

body  doubts  that  there  were  good  and  plau- 
sible things  to  be  said  on  the  part  of  the 
South.  But  this  is  not  a  question  of  ingenu- 
ity, not  a  question  of  syllogisms,  but  of  sides. 
How  came  lie  there?  .  .  .  But  the  question 
which  history  will  ask  is  broader.  In  the 
final  hour  when  he  was  forced  by  the  per- 
emptory necessity  of  the  closing  armies  to 
take  a  side,  —  did  he  take  the  part  of  great 
principles,  the  side  of  humanity  and  justice, 
or  the  side  of  abuse,  and  oppression  and 
chaos?  .  .  .  He 'did  as  immoral  men  usually 
do,  —  made  very  low  bows  to  the  Christian 
Church  and  went  through  all  the  Sunday 
decorums,  but  when  allusion  was  made  to  the 
question  of  duty  and  the  sanctions  of  moral- 
ity, he  very  frankly  said,  at  Albany,  '  Some 
higher  law,  something  existing  somewhere  be- 
tween here  and  the  heaven  —  I  do  not  know 
where.'  And  if  the  reporters  say  true,  this 
wretched  atheism  found  some  laughter  in  the 
company." 

It  was  too  late  for  Emerson  to  shine  as  a 
political  debater.  On  May  14,  1857,  Longfel- 
low wrote  in  his  diary,  "  It  is  rather  painful  to 
see  Emerson  in  the  arena  of  politics,  hissed  and 
hooted  at  by  young  law  students."  Emerson 
records  a  similar  experience  at  a  later  date: 
"  If  I  were  dumb,  yet  would  I  have  gone  and 
56 


EMERSON 

mowed  and  muttered  or  made  signs.  The 
mob  roared  whenever  I  attempted  to  speak, 
and  after  several  beginnings  I  withdrew." 
There  is  nothing  "  painful "  here :  it  is  the 
sublime  exhibition  of  a  great  soul  in  bondage 
to  circumstance. 

The  thing  to  be  noted  is  that  this  is  the 
same  man,  in  the  same  state  of  excitement 
about  the  same  idea,  who  years  before  spoke 
out  in  The  American  Scholar,  in  the  Essays, 
and  in  the  Lectures. 

What  was  it  that  had  aroused  in  Emerson 
such  Promethean  antagonism  in  1837  but 
those  same  forces  which  in  1850  came  to 
their  culmination  and  assumed  visible  shape 
in  the  person  of  Daniel  Webster?  The  formal 
victory  of  Webster  drew  Emerson  into  the 
arena,  and  made  a  dramatic  episode  in  his 
life.  But  his  battle  with  those  forces  had 
begun  thirteen  years  earlier,  when  he  threw 
down  the  gauntlet  to  them  in  his  Phi  Beta 
Kappa  oration.  Emerson  by  his  writings  did 
more  than  any  other  man  to  rescue  the  youth 
of  the  next  generation  and  fit  them  for  the 
fierce  times  to  follow.  It  will  not  be  denied 
that  he  sent  ten  thousand  sons  to  the  war. 

In  speaking  of  Emerson's  attitude  toward 
the  anti-slavery  cause,  it  has  been  possible  to 
dispense  with  any  survey  of  that  movement, 
57 


EMERSON 

because  the  movement  was  simple  and  speci- 
fic and  is  well  remembered.  But  when  we 
come  to  analyze  the  relations  he  bore  to  some 
of  the  local  agitations  of  his  day,  it  becomes 
necessary  to  weave  in  with  the  matter  a  dis- 
cussion of  certain  tendencies  deeply  imbedded 
in  the  life  of  his  times,  and  of  which  he  him- 
self was  in  a  sense  an  outcome.  In  speaking 
of  the  Transcendentalists,  who  were  essentially 
the  children  of  the  Puritans,  we  must  begin  with 
some  study  of  the  chief  traits  of  Puritanism. 

What  parts  the  factors  of  climate,  circum- 
stance, and  religion  have  respectively  played 
in  the  development  of  the  New  England  char- 
acter no  analysis  can  determine.  We  may 
trace  the  imaginary  influence  of  a  harsh  creed 
in  the  lines  of  the  face.  We  may  sometimes 
follow  from  generation  to  generation  the 
course  of  a  truth  which  at  first  sustained  the 
spirit  of  man,  till  we  see  it  petrify  into  a 
dogma  which  now  kills  the  spirits  of  men. 
Conscience  may  destroy  the  character.  The 
tragedy  of  the  New  England  judge  enforcing 
the  Fugitive  Slave  Law  was  no  new  spectacle 
in  New  England.  A  dogmatic  crucifixion  of 
the  natural  instincts  had  been  in  progress 
there  for  two  hundred  years.  Emerson,  who 
is  more  free  from  dogma  than  any  other 
teacher  that  can  be  named,  yet  comes  very 
58 


EMERSON 

near  being  dogmatic  in  his  reiteration  of  the 
Moral  Law. 

Whatever  volume  of  Emerson  we  take  up, 
the  Moral  Law  holds  the  same  place  in  his 
thoughts.  It  is  the  one  statable  revelation  of 
truth  which  he  is  ready  to  stake  his  all  upon. 
"  The  illusion  that  strikes  me  as  the  master- 
piece in  that  ring  of  illusions  which  our  life  is, 
is  the  timidity  with  which  we  assert  our  moral 
sentiment.  We  are  made  of  it,  the  world  is 
built  by  it,  things  endure  as  they  share  it ;  all 
beauty,  all  health,  all  intelligence  exist  by  it; 
yet  we  shrink  to  speak  of  it  or  range  ourselves 
by  its  side.  Nay,  we  presume  strength  of  him 
or  them  who  deny  it.  Cities  go  against  it,  the 
college  goes  against  it,  the  courts  snatch  any 
precedent  at  any  vicious  form  of  law  to  rule 
it  out;  legislatures  listen  with  appetite  to 
declamations  against  it  and  vote  it  down." 

With  this  very  beautiful  and  striking  pas- 
sage no  one  will  quarrel,  nor  will  any  one 
misunderstand  it. 

The  following  passage  has  the  same  sort 
of  poetical  truth.  "  Things  are  saturated 
with  the  moral  law.  There  is  no  escape  from 
it.  Violets  and  grass  preach  it ;  rain  and 
snow,  wind  and  tides,  every  change,  every 
cause  in  Nature  is  nothing  but  a  disguised 
missionary."  .  .  . 

59 


EMERSON 

But  Emerson  is  not  satisfied  with  metaphor. 
"  We  affirm  that  in  all  men  is  this  majestic 
perception  and  command ;  that  it  is  the  pres- 
ence of  the  eternal  in  each  perishing  man ;  that 
it  distances  and  degrades  all  statements  of 
whatever  saints,  heroes,  poets,  as  obscure  and 
confused  stammerings  before  its  silent  revela- 
tion. They  report  the  truth.  It  is  the  truth." 
In  this  last  extract  we  have  Emerson  actually 
affirming  that  his  dogma  of  the  Moral  Law 
is  Absolute  Truth.  He  thinks  it  not  merely 
a  form  of  truth,  like  the  old  theologies,  but 
very  distinguishable  from  all  other  forms  in 
the  past. 

Curiously  enough,  his  statement  of  the  law 
grows  dogmatic  and  incisive  in  proportion  as 
he  approaches  the  borderland  between  his 
law  and  the  natural  instincts  :  "  The  last  rev- 
elation of  intellect  and  of  sentiment  is  that  in  a 
manner  it  severs  the  man  from  all  other  men ; 
makes  known  to  him  that  the  spiritual  powers 
arc  sufficient  to  him  if  no  other  being  existed ; 
that  he  is  to  deal  absolutely  in  the  world,  as 
if  he  alone  were  a  system  and  a  state,  and 
though  all  should  perish  could  make  all 
anew."  Here  we  have  the  dogma  applied, 
and  we  see  in  it  only  a  new  form  of  old  Cal- 
vinism as  cruel  as  Calvinism,  and  not  much 
different  from  its  original.  The  italics  are  not 
60 


EMERSON 

Emerson's,  but  are  inserted  to  bring  out  an 
idea  which  is  everywhere  prevalent  in  his 
teaching. 

In  this  final  form,  the  Moral  Law,  by  insist- 
ing that  sheer  conscience  can  slake  the  thirst 
that  rises  in  the  soul,  is  convicted  of  false- 
hood ;  and  this  heartless  falsehood  is  the 
same  falsehood  that  has  been  put  into  the 
porridge  of  every  Puritan  child  for  six  genera- 
tions. A  grown  man  can  digest  doctrine  and 
sleep  at  night.  But  a  young  person  of  high 
purpose  and  strong  will,  who  takes  such  a  lie 
as  this  half-truth  and  feeds  on  it  as  on  the 
bread  of  life,  will  suffer.  It  will  injure  the 
action  of  his  heart.  Truly  the  fathers  have 
eaten  sour  grapes,  therefore  the  children's 
teeth  are  set  on  edge. 

To  understand  the  civilization  of  cities,  we 
must  look  at  the  rural  population  from  which 
they  draw  their  life.  We  have  recently  had 
our  attention  called  to  the  last  remnants  of 
that  village  life  so  reverently  gathered  up  by 
Miss  Wilkins,  and  of  which  Miss  Emily  Dick- 
inson was  the  last  authentic  voice.  The  spirit 
of  this  age  has  examined  with  an  almost  patho- 
logical interest  this  rescued  society.  We  must 
go  to  it  if  we  would  understand  Emerson,  who 
is  the  blossoming  of  its  culture.  We  must 
61 


EMERSON 

study  it  if  we  would  arrive  at  any  intelligent 
and  general  view  of  that  miscellaneous  crop 
of  individuals  who  have  been  called  the  Tran- 
scendentalists. 

Between  1830  and  1840  there  were  already 
signs  in  New  England  that  the  nutritive  and 
reproductive  forces  of  society  were  not  quite 
wholesome,  not  exactly  well  adjusted.  Self- 
repression  was  the  religion  which  had  been 
inherited.  "  Distrust  Nature  "  was  the  motto 
written  upon  the  front  of  the  temple.  What 
would  have  happened  to  that  society  if  left  to 
itself  for  another  hundred  years  no  man  can 
guess.  It  was  rescued  by  the  two  great  re- 
generators of  mankind,  new  land  and  war. 
The  dispersion  came,  as  Emerson  said  of  the 
barbarian  conquests  of  Rome,  not  a  day  too 
soon.  It  happened  that  the  country  at  large 
stood  in  need  of  New  England  as  much  as 
New  England  stood  in  need  of  the  country. 
This  congested  virtue,  in  order  to  be  saved, 
must  be  scattered.  This  ferment,  in  order  to 
be  kept  wholesome,  must  be  used  as  leaven 
to  leaven  the  whole  lump.  "  As  you  know," 
says  Emerson  in  his  Eulogy  on  Boston, 
"  New  England  supplies  annually  a  large  de- 
tachment of  preachers  and  schoolmasters  and 
private  tutors  to  the  interior  of  the  South  and 
West.  .  .  .  We  are  willing  to  see  our  sons 
62 


EMERSON 

emigrate,  as  to  sec  our  hives  swarm.  That 
is  what  they  were  made  to  do,  and  what  the 
land  wants  and  invites." 

For  purposes  of  yeast,  there  was  never  such 
leaven  as  the  Puritan  stock.  How  little  the 
natural  force  of  the  race  had  really  abated 
became  apparent  when  it  was  placed  under 
healthy  conditions,  given  land  to  till,  foes  to 
fight,  the  chance  to  renew  its  youth  like  the 
eagle.  But  during  this  period  the  relief  had 
not  yet  come.  The  terrible  pressure  of  Puri- 
tanism and  conservatism  in  New  England 
was  causing  a  revolt  not  only  of  the  Aboli- 
tionists, but  of  another  class  of  people  of  a 
type  not  so  virile  as  they.  The  times  have 
been  smartly  described  by  Lowell  in  his  essay 
on  Thoreau :  — 

"  Every  possible  form  of  intellectual  and 
physical  dyspepsia  brought  forth  its  gospel. 
Bran  had  its  prophets.  .  .  .  Everybody  had 
a  Mission  (with  a  capital  M)  to  attend  to 
everybody  else's  business.  No  brain  but  had 
its  private  maggot,  which  must  have  found 
pitiably  short  commons  sometimes.  Not  a 
few  impecunious  zealots  abjured  the  use  of 
money  (unless  earned  by  other  people),  pro- 
fessing to  live  on  the  internal  revenues  of  the 
spirit.  Some  had  an  assurance  of  instant 
millennium  so  soon  as  hooks  and  eyes  should 
63 


EMERSON 

be  substituted  for  buttons.  Communities 
were  established  where  everything  was  to  be 
common  but  common  sense.  .  .  .  Conven- 
tions were  held  for  every  hitherto  inconceiv- 
able purpose." 

Whatever  may  be  said  of  the  Transcenden- 
talists,  it  must  not  be  forgotten  that  they 
represented  an  elevation  of  feeling,  which 
through  them  qualified  the  next  generation, 
and  can  be  traced  in  the  life  of  New  England 
to-day.  The  strong  intrinsic  character  lodged 
in  these  recusants  was  later  made  manifest; 
for  many  of  them  became  the  best  citizens  of 
the  commonwealth,  —  statesmen,  merchants, 
soldiers,  men  and  women  of  affairs.  They 
retained  their  idealism  while  becoming  prac- 
tical men.  There  is  hardly  an  example  of 
what  we  should  have  thought  would  be  com- 
mon in  their  later  lives,  namely,  a  reaction 
from  so  much  ideal  effort,  and  a  plunge  into 
cynicism  and  malice,  scoundrelism  and  the 
flesh-pots.  In  their  early  life  they  resembled 
the  Abolitionists  in  their  devotion  to  an  idea ; 
but  with  the  Transcendentalists  self-culture 
and  the  aesthetic  and  sentimental  education 
took  the  place  of  more  public  aims.  They 
seem  also  to  have  been  persons  of  greater 
social  refinement  than  the  Abolitionists. 

The  Transcendentalists  were  sure  of  only 
64 


EMERSON 

one  thing,  —  that  society  as  constituted  was 
all  wrong.  In  this  their  main  belief  they 
were  right.  They  were  men  and  women 
whose  fundamental  need  was  activity,  contact 
with  real  life,  and  the  opportunity  for  social 
expansion ;  and  they  keenly  felt  the  chill  and 
fictitious  character  of  the  reigning  conven- 
tionalities. The  rigidity  of  behavior  which 
at  this  time  characterized  the  Bostonians 
seemed  sometimes  ludicrous  and  sometimes 
disagreeable  to  the  foreign  visitor.  There 
was  great  gravity,  together  with  a  certain 
pomp  and  dumbness,  and  these  things  were 
supposed  to  be  natural  to  the  inhabitants  and 
to  give  them  joy.  People  are  apt  to  forget 
that  such  masks  are  never  worn  with  ease. 
They  result  from  the  application  of  an  inflex- 
ible will,  and  always  inflict  discomfort.  The 
Transcendentalists  found  themselves  all  but 
stifled  in  a  society  as  artificial  in  its  decorum 
as  the  court  of  France  during  the  last  years 
of  Louis  XIV. 

Emerson  was  in  no  way  responsible  for  the 
movement,  although  he  got  the  credit  of  hav- 
ing evoked  it  by  his  teaching.  He  was  elder 
brother  to  it,  and  was  generated  by  its  pa- 
rental forces ;  but  even  if  Emerson  had  never 
lived,  the  Transcendentalists  would  have  ap- 
peared. He  was  their  victim  rather  than  their 
5  65 


EMERSON 

cause.  He  was  always  tolerant  of  them  and 
sometimes  amused  at  them,  and  disposed  to 
treat  them  lightly.  It  is  impossible  to  analyze 
their  case  with  more  astuteness  than  he  did 
in  an  editorial  letter  in  The  Dial.  The  letter 
is  cold,  but  is  a  masterpiece  of  good  sense. 
He  had,  he  says,  received  fifteen  letters  on  the 
Prospects  of  Culture.  "  Excellent  reasons 
have  been  shown  us  why  the  writers,  obviously 
persons  of  sincerity  and  elegance,  should  be 
dissatisfied  with  the  life  they  lead,  and  with 
their  company.  .  .  .  They  want  a  friend  to 
whom  they  can  speak  and  from  whom  they 
may  hear  now  and  then  a  reasonable  word." 
After  discussing  one  or  two  of  their  proposals, 
—  one  of  which  was  that  the  tiresome  "  uncles 
and  aunts  "  of  the  enthusiasts  should  be  placed 
by  themselves  in  one  delightful  village,  the 
dough,  as  Emerson  says,  be  placed  in  one 
pan  and  the  leaven  in  another,  —  he  con- 
tinues :  "  But  it  would  be  unjust  not  to  remind 
our  younger  friends  that  whilst  this  aspiration 
has  always  made  its  mark  in  the  lives  of  men 
of  thought,  in  vigorous  individuals  it  does  not 
remain  a  detached  object,  but  is  satisfied  along 
with  the  satisfaction  of  other  aims."  Young 
Americans  "  are  educated  above  the  work  of 
their  times  and  country,  and  disdain  it.  Many 
of  the  more  acute  minds  pass  into  a  lofty 
66 


EMERSON 

criticism  .  .  .  which  only  embitters  their  sen- 
sibility to  the  evil,  and  widens  the  feeling  of 
hostility  between  them  and  the  citizens  at 
large.  .  .  .  We  should  not  know  where  to  find 
in  literature  any  record  of  so  much  unbalanced 
intellectuality,  such  undeniable  apprehension 
without  talent,  so  much  power  without  equal 
applicability,  as  our  young  men  pretend  to. 
.  .  .  The  balance  of  mind  and  body  will  re- 
dress itself  fast  enough.  Superficialness  is  the 
real  distemper.  ...  It  is  certain  that  specu- 
lation is  no  succedaneum  for  life."  He  then 
turns  to  find  the  cure  for  these  distempers  in  the 
farm  lands  of  Illinois,  at  that  time  already  be- 
ing fenced  in  "  almost  like  New  England  itself," 
and  closes  with  a  suggestion  that  so  long  as 
there  is  a  woodpile  in  the  yard,  and  the 
"wrongs  of  the  Indian,  of  the  Negro,  of  the 
emigrant,  remain  unmitigated,"  relief  might 
be  found  even  nearer  home. 

In  his  lecture  on  the  Transcendentalists  he 
says :  " .  .  .  But  their  solitary  and  fastidious 
manners  not  only  withdraw  them  from  the 
conversation,  but  from  the  labors  of  the 
world :  they  are  not  good  citizens,  not  good 
members  of  society ;  unwillingly  they  bear 
their  part  of  the  public  and  private  burdens ; 
they  do  not  willingly  share  in  the  public 
charities,  in  the  public  religious  rites,  in  the 
67 


EMERSON 

enterprises  of  education,  of  missions  foreign 
and  domestic,  in  the  abolition  of  the  slave- 
trade,  or  in  the  temperance  society.  They 
do  not  even  like  to  vote."  A  less  sympathetic 
observer,  Harriet  Martineau,  wrote  of  them : 
"  While  Margaret  Fuller  and  her  adult  pupils 
sat  '  gorgeously  dressed,'  talking  about  Mars 
and  Venus,  Plato  and  Goethe,  and  fancying 
themselves  the  elect  of  the  earth  in  intellect 
and  refinement,  the  liberties  of  the  republic 
were  running  out  as  fast  as  they  could  go  at  a 
breach  which  another  sort  of  elect  persons 
were  devoting  themselves  to  repair ;  and  my 
complaint  against  the  '  gorgeous '  pedants 
was  that  they  regarded  their  preservers  as 
hewers  of  wood  and  drawers  of  water,  and 
their  work  as  a  less  vital  one  than  the  pedan- 
tic orations  which  were  spoiling  a  set  of  well- 
meaning  women  in  a  pitiable  way."  Harriet 
Martineau,  whose  whole  work  was  practical, 
and  who  wrote  her  journal  in  1855  and 
in  the  light  of  history,  was  hardly  able  to 
do  justice  to  these  unpractical  but  sincere 
spirits. 

Emerson  was  divided  from  the  Transcen- 
dentalists  by  his  common  sense.  His  shrewd 
business  intellect  made  short  work  of  their 
schemes.  Each  one  of  their  social  projects 
contained  some  covert  economic  weakness, 
6S 


EMERSON 

which  always  turned  out  to  lie  in  an  attack 
upon  the  integrity  of  the  individual,  and  which 
Emerson  of  all  men  could  be  counted  on  to 
detect.  He  was  divided  from  them  also  by 
the  fact  that  he  was  a  man  of  genius,  who  had 
sought  out  and  fought  out  his  means  of  ex- 
pression. He  was  a  great  artist,  and  as  such 
he  was  a  complete  being.  No  one  could  give 
to  him  nor  take  from  him.  His  yearnings 
found  fruition  in  expression.  He  was  sure  of 
his  place  and  of  his  use  in  this  world.  But 
the  Transcendentalists  were  neither  geniuses 
nor  artists  nor  complete  beings.  Nor  had 
they  found  their  places  or  uses  as  yet.  They 
were  men  and  women  seeking  light.  They 
walked  in  dry  places,  seeking  rest  and  rinding 
none.  The  Transcendentalists  are  not  col- 
lectively important  because  their  Sturm  und 
Drang  was  intellectual  and  bloodless.  Though 
Emerson  admonish  and  Harriet  Martineau 
condemn,  yet  from  the  memorials  that  sur- 
vive, one  is  more  impressed  with  the  suffer- 
ings than  with  the  ludicrousness  of  these 
persons.  There  is  something  distressing 
about  their  letters,  their  talk,  their  memoirs, 
their  interminable  diaries.  They  worry  and 
contort  and  introspect.  They  rave  and 
dream.  They  peep  and  theorize.  They  cut 
open  the  bellows  of  life  to  see  where  the  wind 
,69 


EMERSON 

comes  from.  Margaret  Fuller  analyzes  Em- 
erson, and  Emerson  Margaret  Fuller.  It  is 
not  a  wholesome  ebullition  of  vitality.  It  is  a 
nightmare,  in  which  the  emotions,  the  terror, 
the  agony,  the  rapture,  are  all  unreal,  and 
have  no  vital  content,  no  consequence  in  the 
world  outside.  It  is  positively  wonderful 
that  so  much  excitement  and  so  much  suffer- 
ing should  have  left  behind  nothing  in  the 
field  of  art  which  is  valuable.  All  that  intel- 
ligence could  do  toward  solving  problems  for 
his  friends  Emerson  did.  But  there  are  situ- 
ations in  life  in  which  the  intelligence  is  help- 
less, and  in  which  something  else,  something 
perhaps  possessed  by  a  ploughboy,  is  more 
divine  than  Plato. 

If  it  were  not  pathetic,  there  would  be 
something  cruel  —  indeed  there  is  something 
cruel  —  in  Emerson's  incapacity  to  deal  with 
Margaret  Fuller.  He  wrote  to  her  on  October 
24,  1840:  "My  dear  Margaret,  I  have  your 
frank  and  noble  and  affecting  letter,  and  yet  I 
think  I  could  wish  it  unwritten.  I  ought 
never  to  have  suffered  you  to  lead  me  into 
any  conversation  or  writing  on  our  relation,  a 
topic  from  which  with  all  persons  my  Genius 
warns  me  away." 

The  letter  proceeds  with  unimpeachable 
emptiness  and  integrity  in  the  same  strain. 
70 


EMERSON 

In  1841  he  writes  in  his  diary:  "Strange, 
cold-warm,  attractive-repelling  conversation 
with  Margaret,  whom  I  always  admire,  most 
revere  when  I  nearest  see,  and  sometimes 
love ;  yet  whom  I  freeze  and  who  freezes 
me  to  silence  when  we  promise  to  come 
nearest." 

Human  sentiment  was  known  to  Emerson 
mainly  in  the  form  of  pain.  His  nature 
shunned  it ;  he  cast  it  off  as  quickly  as  pos- 
sible. There  is  a  word  or  two  in  the  essay  on 
Love  which  seems  to  show  that  the  inner  and 
diaphanous  core  of  this  seraph  had  once,  but 
not  for  long,  been  shot  with  blood :  he  recalls 
only  the  pain  of  it.  His  relations  with  Mar- 
garet Fuller  seem  never  normal,  though  they 
lasted  for  years.  This  brilliant  woman  was  in 
distress.  She  was  asking  for  bread,  and  he 
was  giving  her  a  stone,  and  neither  of  them 
was  conscious  of  what  was  passing.  This  is 
pitiful.  It  makes  us  clutch  about  us  to  catch 
hold,  if  we  somehow  may,  of  the  hand  of  a 
man. 

There  was  manliness  in  Horace  Greeley, 
under  whom  Miss  Fuller  worked  on  the  New 
York  Tribune  not  many  years  afterward.  She 
wrote:  "Mr.  Greeley  I  like,  —  nay,  more, 
love.  He  is  in  his  habit  a  plebeian,  in  his 
heart  a  nobleman.  His  abilities  in  his  own 
7i 


EMERSON 

way  are  great.     He  believes  in  mine  to  a  sur- 
prising degree.     We  are  true  friends." 

This  anaemic  incompleteness  of  Emerson's 
character  can  be  traced  to  the  philosophy  of 
his  race ;  at  least  it  can  be  followed  in  that 
philosophy.  There  is  an  implication  of 
a  fundamental  falsehood  in  every  bit  of 
Transcendentalism,  including  Emerson.  That 
falsehood  consists  in  the  theory  of  the  self- 
sufficiency  of  each  individual,  men  and  women 
alike.  Margaret  Fuller  is  a  good  example  of 
the  effect  of  this  philosophy,  because  her 
history  afterward  showed  that  she  was  con- 
stituted like  other  human  beings,  was  depend- 
ent upon  human  relationship,  and  was  not 
only  a  very  noble,  but  also  a  very  womanly 
creature.  Her  marriage,  her  Italian  life,  and 
her  tragic  death  light  up  with  the  splendor  of 
reality  the  earlier  and  unhappy  period  of  her 
life.  This  woman  had  been  driven  into  her 
vagaries  by  the  lack  of  something  which  she 
did  not  know  existed,  and  which  she  sought 
blindly  in  metaphysics.  Harriet  Martineau 
writes  of  her :  "  It  is  the  most  grievous  loss  I 
have  almost  ever  known  in  private  history,  the 
deferring  of  Margaret  Fuller's  married  life  so 
long.  That  noble  last  period  of  her  life  is 
happily  on  record  as  well  as  the  earlier." 
The  hardy  Englishwoman  has  here  laid  a  kind 
72 


EMERSON 

human  hand  on  the  weakness  of  New  England, 
and  seems  to  be  unconscious  that  she  is 
making  a  revelation  as  to  the  whole  Tran- 
scendental movement.  But  the  point  is  this : 
there  was  no  one  within  reach  of  Margaret 
Fuller,  in  her  early  days,  who  knew  what  was 
her  need.  One  offered  her  Kant,  one  Comtc, 
one  Fourier,  one  Swedenborg,  one  the  Moral 
Law.  You  cannot  feed  the  heart  on  these 
things. 

Yet  there  is  a  bright  side  to  this  New  Eng- 
land spirit,  which  seems,  if  we  look  only  to 
the  graver  emotions,  so  dry,  dismal,  and  de- 
ficient. A  bright  and  cheery  courage  appears 
in  certain  natures  of  which  the  sun  has  made 
conquest,  that  almost  reconciles  us  to  all  loss, 
so  splendid  is  the  outcome.  The  practical, 
dominant,  insuppressible  active  temperaments 
who  have  a  word  for  every  emergency,  and 
who  carry  the  controlled  force  of  ten  men  at 
their  disposal,  are  the  fruits  of  this  same  spirit. 
Emerson  knew  not  tears,  but  he  and  the 
hundred  other  beaming  and  competent  char- 
acters which  New  England  has  produced 
make  us  almost  envy  their  state.  They  give 
us  again  the  old  Stoics  at  their  best. 

Very  closely  connected  with  this  subject  — 
the  crisp  and  cheery  New  England  tempera- 
ment—  lies  another  which  any  discussion  ol 
73 


EMERSON 

Emerson  must  bring  up,  —  namely,  Asceticism. 
It  is  probable  that  in  dealing  with  Emerson's 
feelings  about  the  plastic  arts  we  have  to  do 
with  what  is  really  the  inside,  or  metaphysical 
side,  of  the  same  phenomena  which  present 
themselves  on  the  outside,  or  physical  side,  in 
the  shape  of  asceticism. 

Emerson's  natural  asceticism  is  revealed  to 
us  in  almost  every  form  in  which  history  can 
record  a  man.  It  is  in  his  philosophy,  in  his 
style,  in  his  conduct,  and  in  his  appearance. 
It  was,  however,  not  in  his  voice.  Mr.  Cabot, 
with  that  reverence  for  which  every  one  must 
feel  personally  grateful  to  him,  has  preserved 
a  description  of  Emerson  by  the  New  York 
journalist,  N.  P.  Willis :  "  It  is  a  voice  with 
shoulders  in  it,  which  he  has  not;  with  lungs 
in  it  far  larger  than  his;  with  a  walk  which 
the  public  never  see ;  with  a  fist  in  it  which 
his  own  hand  never  gave  him  the  model  for ; 
and  with  a  gentleman  in  it  which  his  parochial 
and  '  bare-necessaries-of-life  '  sort  of  exterior 
gives  no  other  betrayal  of.  We  can  imagine 
nothing  in  nature  (which  seems  too  to  have  a 
type  for  everything)  like  the  want  of  corre- 
spondence between  the  Emerson  that  goes  in 
at  the  eye  and  the  Emerson  that  goes  in  at 
the  ear.  A  heavy  and  vase-like  blossom  of  a 
magnolia,  with  fragrance  enough  to  perfume 
74 


EMERSON 

a  whole  wilderness,  which  should  be  lifted  by 
a  whirlwind  and  dropped  into  a  branch  of 
aspen,  would  not  seem  more  as  if  it  could 
never  have  grown  there  than  Emerson's  voice 
seems  inspired  and  foreign  to  his  visible  and 
natural  body."  Emerson's  ever  exquisite 
and  wonderful  good  taste  seems  closely  con- 
nected with  this  asceticism,  and  it  is  probable 
that  his  taste  influenced  his  views  and  conduct 
to  some  small  extent. 

The  anti-slavery  people  were  nQt  always 
refined.  They  were  constantly  doing  things 
which  were  tactically  very  effective,  but  were 
not  calculated  to  attract  the  over-sensitive. 
Garrison's  rampant  and  impersonal  egotism 
was  good  politics,  but  bad  taste.  Wendell 
Phillips  did  not  hesitate  upon  occasion  to 
deal  in  personalities  of  an  exasperating  kind. 
One  sees  a  certain  shrinking  in  Emerson  from 
\he  taste  of  the  Abolitionists.  It  was  not 
merely  their  doctrines  or  their  methods  which 
offended  him.  He  at  one  time  refused  to 
give  Wendell  Phillips  his  hand  because  of 
Phillips's  treatment  of  his  friend,  Judge  Hoar. 
One  hardly  knows  whether  to  be  pleased  at 
Emerson  for  showing  a  human  weakness,  or 
annoyed  at  him  for  not  being  more  of  a  man. 
The  anecdote  is  valuable  in  both  lights.  It  is 
like  a  tiny  speck  on  the  crystal  of  his  character 
75 


EMERSON 

which  shows  us  the  exact  location  of  the  orb, 
and  it  is  the  best  illustration  of  the  feeling  of 
the  times  which  has  come  down  to  us. 

If  by  "  asceticism  "  we  mean  an  experiment 
in  starving  the  senses,  there  is  little  harm  in 
it.  Nature  will  soon  reassert  her  dominion, 
and  very  likely  our  perceptions  will  be  sharp- 
ened by  the  trial.  But  "  natural  asceticism  " 
is  a  thing  hardly  to  be  distinguished  from 
functional  weakness.  What  is  natural  asceti- 
cism but  a  lack  of  vigor?  Does  it  not  tend 
to  close  the  avenues  between  the  soul  and  the 
universe?  "  Is  it  not  so  much  death?  "  The 
accounts  of  Emerson  show  him  to  have  been 
a  man  in  whom  there  was  almost  a  hiatus 
between  the  senses  and  the  most  inward  spirit 
of  life.  The  lower  register  of  sensations  and 
emotions  which  domesticate  a  man  into  fel- 
lowship with  common  life  was  weak.  Genial 
familiarity  was  to  him  impossible ;  laughter 
was  almost  a  pain.  "  It  is  not  the  sea  and 
poverty  and  pursuit  that  separate  us.  Here 
is  Alcott  by  my  door,  —  yet  is  the  union  more 
profound?  No!  the  sea,  vocation,  poverty, 
are  seeming  fences,  but  man  is  insular  and 
cannot  be  touched.  Every  man  is  an  infi- 
nitely repellent  orb,  and  holds  his  individual 
being  on  that  condition.  .  .  .  Most  of  the 
persons  whom  I  see  in  my  own  house  I  see 
76 


EMERSON 

across  a  gulf;  I  cannot  go  to  them  nor  they 
come  to  me." 

This  aloofness  of  Emerson  must  be  remem- 
bered only  as  blended  with  his  benignity. 
"  His  friends  were  all  that  knew  him,"  and,  as 
Dr.  Holmes  said,  "  his  smile  was  the  well- 
remembered  line  of  Terence  written  out  in 
living  features."  Emerson's  journals  show 
the  difficulty  of  his  intercourse  even  with  him- 
self. He  could  not  reach  himself  at  will,  nor 
could  another  reach  him.  The  sensuous  and 
ready  contact  with  nature  which  more  carnal 
people  enjoy  was  unknown  to  him.  He  had 
eyes  for  the  New  England  landscape,  but  for 
no  other  scenery.  If  there  is  one  supreme 
sensation  reserved  for  man,  it  is  the  vision  of 
Venice  seen  from  the  water.  This  sight 
greeted  Emerson  at  the  age  of  thirty.  The 
famous  city,  as  he  approached  it  by  boat, 
"  looked  for  some  time  like  nothing  but  New 
York.  It  is  a  great  oddity,  a  city  for  beavers, 
but  to  my  thought  a  most  disagreeable  resi- 
dence. You  feel  always  in  prison  and  soli- 
tary. It  is  as  if  you  were  always  at  sea.  I 
soon  had  enough  of  it." 

Emerson's  contempt  for  travel  and  for  the 

"  rococo  toy,"   Italy,   is   too   well  known  to 

need  citation.      It   proceeds    from  the  same 

deficiency  of  sensation.     His  eyes  saw  noth- 

77 


EMERSON 

ing;  his  ears  heard  nothing.  He  believed 
that  men  travelled  for  distraction  and  to  kill 
time.  The  most  vulgar  plutocrat  could  not 
be  blinder  to  beauty  nor  bring  home  less  from 
Athens  than  this  cultivated  saint.  Everything 
in  the  world  which  must  be  felt  with  a  glow 
in  the  breast,  in  order  to  be  understood,  was 
to  him  dead-letter.  Art  was  a  name  to  him ; 
music  was  a  name  to  him ;  love  was  a  name 
to  him.  His  essay  on  Love  is  a  nice  compila- 
tion of  compliments  and  elegant  phrases  end- 
ing up  with  some  icy  morality.  It  seems 
very  well  fitted  for  a  gift-book  or  an  old-fash- 
ioned lady's  annual. 

"  The  lovers  delight  in  endearments,  in 
avowals  of  love,  in  comparisons  of  their  re- 
gards. .  .  .  The  soul  which  is  in  the  soul  of 
each,  craving  a  perfect  beatitude,  detects 
incongruities,  defects,  and  disproportion  in 
the  behavior  of  the  other.  Hence  arise 
surprise,  expostulation,  and  pain.  Yet  that 
which  drew  them  to  each  other  was  signs  of 
loveliness,  signs  of  virtue ;  and  these  virtues 
are  there,  however  eclipsed.  They  appear 
and  reappear  and  continue  to  attract;  but 
the  regard  changes,  quits  the  sign  and  at- 
taches to  the  substance.  This  repairs  the 
wounded  affection.  Meantime,  as  life  wears 
on,  it  proves  a  game  of  permutation  and  com- 
78 


EMERSON 

bination  of  all  possible  positions  of  the  par- 
ties, to  employ  all  the  resources  of  each,  and 
acquaint  each  with  the  weakness  of  the 
other.  ...  At  last  they  discover  that  all 
which  at  first  drew  them  together  —  those 
once  sacred  features,  that  magical  play  of 
charms  —  was  deciduous,  had  a  prospective 
end  like  the  scaffolding  by  which  the  house 
was  built,  and  the  purification  of  the  intellect 
and  the  heart  from  year  to  year  is  the  real 
marriage,  foreseen  and  prepared  from  the 
first,  and  wholly  above  their  conscious- 
ness. .  .  .  Thus  are  we  put  in  training  for  a 
love  which  knows  not  sex  nor  person  nor 
partiality,  but  which  seeks  wisdom  and  virtue 
everywhere,  to  the  end  of  increasing  virtue 
and  wisdom.  .  .  .  There  are  moments  when 
the  affections  rule  and  absorb  the  man,  and 
make  his  happiness  dependent  on  a  person  or 
persons.  But  in  health  the  mind  is  presently 
seen  again,"  etc. 

All  this  is  not  love,  but  the  merest  literary 
coquetry.  Love  is  different  from  this.  Lady 
Burton,  when  a  very  young  girl,  and  six 
years  before  her  engagement,  met  Burton  at 
Boulogne.  They  met  in  the  street,  but  did 
not  speak.  A  few  days  later  they  were  for- 
mally introduced  at  a  dance.  Of  this  she 
writes:  "That  was  a  night  of  nights.  He 
79 


EMERSON 

waltzed  with  me  once,  and  spoke  to  me 
several  times.  I  kept  the  sash  where  he  put 
his  arm  around  me  and  my  gloves,  and  never 
wore  them  again." 

A  glance  at  what  Emerson  says  about 
marriage  shows  that  he  suspected  that  institu- 
tion. He  can  hardly  speak  of  it  without 
some  sort  of  caveat  or  precaution.  "  Though 
the  stuff  of  tragedy  and  of  romances  is  in  a 
moral  union  of  two  superior  persons  whose 
confidence  in  each  other  for  long  years,  out 
of  sight  and  in  sight,  and  against  all  appear- 
ances, is  at  last  justified  by  victorious  proof 
of  probity  to  gods  and  men,  causing  joyful 
emotions,  tears,  and  glory,  —  though  there  be 
for  heroes  this  moral  union,  yet  they  too  are 
as  far  as  ever  from  an  intellectual  union,  and 
the  moral  is  for  low  and  external  purposes, 
like  the  corporation  of  a  ship's  company  or 
of  a  fire  club."  In  speaking  of  modern 
novels,  he  says :  "  There  is  no  new  element, 
no  power,  no  furtherance.  'T  is  only  confec- 
tionery, not  the  raising  of  new  corn.  Great 
is  the  poverty  of  their  inventions.  She  tvas 
beautiful,  and  he  fell  in  love.  .  .  .  Happy 
will  that  house  be  in  which  the  relations  are 
formed  by  character;  after  the  highest  and 
not  after  the  lowest;  the  house  in  which 
character  marries  and  not  confusion  and  a 
80 


EMERSON 

miscellany  of  unavowable  motives.  ...  To 
each  occurs  soon  after  puberty,  some  event, 
or  society  or  way  of  living,  which  becomes 
the  crisis  of  life  and  the  chief  fact  in  their 
history.  In  women  it  is  love  and  marriage 
(which  is  more  reasonable),  and  yet  it  is 
pitiful  to  date  and  measure  all  the  facts  and 
sequel  of  an  unfolding  life  from  such  a  youth- 
ful and  generally  inconsiderate  period  as  the 
age  of  courtship  and  marriage.  .  .  .  Women 
more  than  all  are  the  element  and  kingdom 
of  illusion.  Being  fascinated  they  fascinate. 
They  see  through  Claude  Lorraines.  And 
how  dare  any  one,  if  he  could,  pluck  away 
the  coulisses,  stage  effects  and  ceremonies  by 
which  they  live  ?  Too  pathetic,  too  pitiable, 
is  the  region  of  affection,  and  its  atmosphere 
always  liable  to  mirage." 

We  are  all  so  concerned  that  a  man  who 
writes  about  love  shall  tell  the  truth  that  if  he 
chance  to  start  from  premises  which  are  false 
or  mistaken,  his  conclusions  will  appear  not 
merely  false,  but  offensive.  It  makes  no 
matter  how  exalted  the  personal  character  of 
the  writer  may  be.  Neither  sanctity  nor 
intellect  nor  moral  enthusiasm,  though  they 
be  intensified  to  the  point  of  incandescence, 
can  make  up  for  a  want  of  nature. 

This  perpetual  splitting  up  of  love  into  two 
6  81 


EMERSON 

species,  one  of  which  is  condemned,  but 
admitted  to  be  useful  —  is  it  not  degrading? 
There  is  in  Emerson's  theory  of  the  relation 
between  the  sexes  neither  good  sense,  nor 
manly  feeling,  nor  sound  psychology.  It  is 
founded  on  none  of  these  things.  It  is  a  pure 
piece  of  dogmatism,  and  reminds  us  that  he 
was  bred  to  the  priesthood.  We  are  not  to 
imagine  that  there  was  in  this  doctrine  any- 
thing peculiar  to  Emerson.  But  we  are  sur- 
prised to  find  the  pessimism  inherent  in  the 
doctrine  overcome  Emerson,  to  whom  pessi- 
mism is  foreign.  Both  doctrine  and  pessimism 
are  a  part  of  the  Puritanism  of  the  times. 
They  show  a  society  in  which  the  intellect 
had  long  been  used  to  analyze  the  affections, 
in  which  the  head  had  become  dislocated 
from  the  body.  To  this  disintegration  of  the 
simple  passion  of  love  may  be  traced  the  lack 
of  maternal  tenderness  characteristic  of  the 
New  England  nature.  The  relation  between 
the  blood  and  the  brain  was  not  quite  normal 
in  this  civilization,  nor  in  Emerson,  who  is 
its  most  remarkable  representative. 

If  we  take  two  steps  backward  from  the 
canvas  of  this  mortal  life  and  glance  at  it  im- 
partially, we  shall  see  that  these  matters  of 
love  and  marriage  pass  like  a  pivot  through 
the  lives  of  almost  every  individual,  and  are, 
82 


EMERSON 

sociologically  speaking,  the  primum  mobile  of 
the  world.  The  books  of  any  philosopher 
who  slurs  them  or  distorts  them  will  hold  up 
a  false  mirror  to  life.  If  an  inhabitant  of 
another  planet  should  visit  the  earth,  he  would 
receive,  on  the  whole,  a  truer  notion  of  human 
life  by  attending  an  Italian  opera  than  he 
would  by  reading  Emerson's  volumes.  He 
would  learn  from  the  Italian  opera  that  there 
were  two  sexes ;  and  this,  after  all,  is  proba- 
bly the  fact  with  which  the  education  of  such 
a  stranger  ought  to  begin. 

In  a  review  of  Emerson's  personal  charac- 
ter and  opinions,  we  are  thus  led  to  see  that 
his  philosophy,  which  finds  no  room  for  the 
emotions,  is  a  faithful  exponent  of  his  own 
and  of  the  New  England  temperament,  which 
distrusts  and  dreads  the  emotions.  Regarded 
as  a  sole  guide  to  life  for  a  young  person  of 
strong  conscience  and  undeveloped  affections, 
his  works  might  conceivably  be  even  harmful 
because  of  their  unexampled  power  of  purely 
intellectual  stimulation. 

Emerson's  poetry  has  given  rise  to  much 
heart-burning  and  disagreement.  Some  peo- 
ple do  not  like  it.  They  fail  to  find  the  fire 
in  the  ice.  On  the  other  hand,  his  poems 
appeal  not  only  to  a  large  number  of  pro- 
83 


EMERSON 

fessed  lovers  of  poetry,  but  also  to  a  class  of 
readers  who  find  in  Emerson  an  element  for 
which  they  search  the  rest  of  poesy  in  vain. 

It  is  the  irony  of  fate  that  his  admirers 
should  be  more  than  usually  sensitive  about 
his  fame.  This  prophet  who  desired  not  to 
have  followers,  lest  he  too  should  become  a 
cult  and  a  convention,  and  whose  main  thesis 
throughout  life  was  that  piety  is  a  crime,  has 
been  calmly  canonized  and  embalmed  in  am- 
ber by  the  very  forces  he  braved.  He  is 
become  a  tradition  and  a  sacred  relic.  You 
must  speak  of  him  under  your  breath,  and 
you  may  not  laugh  near  his  shrine. 

Emerson's  passion  for  nature  was  not  like 
the  passion  of  Keats  or  of  Burns,  of  Coleridge 
or  of  Robert  Browning;  compared  with  these 
men  he  is  cold.  His  temperature  is  below 
blood-heat,  and  his  volume  of  poems  stands 
on  the  shelf  of  English  poets  like  the  icy  fish 
which  in  Caliban  upon  Setebos  is  described  as 
finding  himself  thrust  into  the  warm  ooze  of 
an  ocean  not  his  own. 

But  Emerson  is  a  poet,  nevertheless,  a  very 
extraordinary  and  rare  man  of  genius,  whose 
verses  carry  a  world  of  their  own  within  them. 
They  are  overshadowed  by  the  greatness  of 
his  prose,  but  they  are  authentic.  He  is  the 
chief  poet  of  that  school  of  which  Emily 
84 


EMERSON 

Dickinson  is  a  minor  poet.  His  poetry  is  a 
successful  spiritual  deliverance  of  great  inter- 
est. His  worship  of  the  New  England  land- 
scape amounts  to  a  religion.  His  poems  do 
that  most  wonderful  thing,  make  us  feel  that 
we  are  alone  in  the  fields  and  with  the  trees,  — 
not  English  fields  nor  French  lanes,  but  New 
England  meadows  and  uplands.  There  is  no 
human  creature  in  sight,  not  even  Emerson 
is  there,  but  the  wind  and  the  flowers,  the 
wild  birds,  the  fences,  the  transparent  atmos- 
phere, the  breath  of  nature.  There  is  a  deep 
and  true  relation  between  the  intellectual  and 
almost  dry  brilliancy  of  Emerson's  feelings 
and  the  landscape  itself.  Here  is  no  de- 
fective English  poet,  no  Shelley  without  the 
charm,  but  an  American  poet,  a  New  England 
poet  with  two  hundred  years  of  New  England 
culture  and  New  England  landscape  in 
him. 

People  are  forever  speculating  upon  what 
will  last,  what  posterity  will  approve,  and 
some  people  believe  that  Emerson's  poetry 
will  outlive  his  prose.  The  question  is  idle. 
The  poems  are  alive  now,  and  they  may  or 
may  not  survive  the  race  whose  spirit  they 
embody ;  but  one  thing  is  plain :  they  have 
qualities  which  have  preserved  poetry  in  the 
past.  They  are  utterly  indigenous  and  sin- 
85 


EMERSON 

cere.  They  are  short.  They  represent  a 
civilization  and  a  climate. 

His  verse  divides  itself  into  several  classes. 
We  have  the  single  lyrics,  written  somewhat 
in  the  style  of  the  later  seventeenth  century. 
Of  these  The  Humble  Bee  is  the  most  ex- 
quisite, and  although  its  tone  and  imagery 
can  be  traced  to  various  well-known  and 
dainty  bits  of  poetry,  it  is  by  no  means  an 
imitation,  but  a  masterpiece  of  fine  taste. 
The  Rhodora  and  Terminus  and  perhaps  a 
few  others  belong  to  that  class  of  poetry 
which,  like  Abou  Ben  Adhem,  is  poetry  be- 
cause it  is  the  perfection  of  statement.  The 
Boston  Hymn,  the  Concord  Ode,  and  the 
other  occasional  pieces  fall  in  another  class, 
and  do  not  seem  to  be  important.  The  first 
two  lines  of  the  Ode, 

"  O  tenderly  the  haughty  day 
Fills  his  blue  urn  with  fire." 

are  for  their  extraordinary  beauty  worthy  of 
some  mythical  Greek,  some  Simonides,  some 
Sappho,  but  the  rest  of  the  lines  are  com- 
monplace. Throughout  his  poems  there  are 
good  bits,  happy  and  golden  lines,  snatches 
of  grace.  He  himself  knew  the  quality  of  his 
poetry,  and  wrote  of  it, 

"  All  were  sifted  through  and  through, 
Five  lines  lasted  sound  and  true." 
86 


EMERSON 

He  is  never  merely  conventional,  and  his  po- 
etry, like  his  prose,  is  homespun  and  sound. 
But  his  ear  was  defective :  his  rhymes  are 
crude,  and  his  verse  is  often  lame  and  un- 
musical, a  fault  which  can  be  countervailed 
by  nothing  but  force,  and  force  he  lacks.  To 
say  that  his  ear  was  defective  is  hardly  strong 
enough.  Passages  are  not  uncommon  which 
hurt  the  reader  and  unfit  him  to  proceed ;  as, 
for  example :  — 

"  Thorough  a  thousand  voices 
Spoke  the  universal  dame  : 
'  Who  telleth  one  of  my  meanings 
Is  master  of  all  I  am.' " 

He  himself  has  very  well  described  the  im- 
pression his  verse  is  apt  to  make  on  a  new 
reader  when  he  says,  — 

"  Poetry  must  not  freeze,  but  flow." 

The  lovers  of  Emerson's  poems  freely  ac- 
knowledge all  these  defects,  but  find  in  them 
another  element,  very  subtle  and  rare,  very 
refined  and  elusive,  if  not  altogether  unique. 
This  is  the  mystical  element  or  strain  which 
qualifies  many  of  his  poems,  and  to  which 
some  of  them  are  wholly  devoted. 

There  has  been  so  much  discussion  as  to 
Emerson's  relation  to  the  mystics  that  it  is 
well  here  to  turn  aside  for  a  moment  and 
87 


EMERSON 

consider  the  matter  by  itself.  The  elusive- 
ness  of  "  mysticism  "  arises  out  of  the  fact 
that  it  is  not  a  creed,  but  a  state  of  mind.  It  is 
formulated  into  no  dogmas,  but,  in  so  far  as  it 
is  communicable,  it  is  conveyed,  or  sought  to 
be  conveyed,  by  symbols.  These  symbols  to 
a  sceptical  or  an  unsympathetic  person  will 
say  nothing,  but  the  presumption  among 
those  who  are  inclined  towards  the  cult  is 
that  if  these  symbols  convey  anything  at  all, 
that  thing  is  mysticism.  The  mystics  are 
right.  The  familiar  phrases,  terms,  and  sym- 
bols of  mysticism  are  not  meaningless,  and  a 
glance  at  them  shows  that  they  do  tend 
to  express  and  evoke  a  somewhat  definite 
psychic  condition. 

There  is  a  certain  mood  of  mind  experi- 
enced by  most  of  us  in  which  we  feel  the 
mystery  of  existence ;  in  which  our  conscious- 
ness seems  to  become  suddenly  separated 
from  our  thoughts,  and  we  find  ourselves 
asking,  "Who  am  I?  What  are  these 
thoughts?"  The  mood  is  very  apt  to  over- 
take us  while  engaged  in  the  commonest  acts. 
In  health  it  is  always  momentary,  and  seems 
to  coincide  with  the  instant  of  the  transition 
and  shift  of  our  attention  from  one  thing  to 
another.  It  is  probably  connected  with  the 
transfer  of  energy  from  one  set  of  faculties  to 
88 


EMERSON 

another  set,  which  occurs,  for  instance,  on 
our  waking  from  sleep,  on  our  hearing  a  bell 
at  night,  on  our  observing  any  common  ob- 
ject, a  chair  or  a  pitcher,  at  a  time  when  our 
mind  is  or  has  just  been  thoroughly  pre- 
occupied with  something  else.  This  dis- 
placement of  the  attention  occurs  in  its  most 
notable  form  when  we  walk  from  the  study 
into  the  open  fields.  Nature  then  attacks  us 
on  all  sides  at  once,  overwhelms,  drowns,  and 
destroys  our  old  thoughts,  stimulates  vaguely 
and  all  at  once  a  thousand  new  ideas,  dissi- 
pates all  focus  of  thought  and  dissolves  our 
attention.  If  we  happen  to  be  mentally  fa- 
tigued, and  we  take  a  walk  in  the  country, 
a  sense  of  immense  relief,  of  rest  and  joy, 
which  nothing  else  on  earth  can  give,  accom- 
panies this  distraction  of  the  mind  from  its 
problems.  The  reaction  fills  us  with  a  sense 
of  mystery  and  expansion.  It  brings  us  to 
the  threshold  of  those  spiritual  experiences 
which  are  the  obscure  core  and  reality  of  our 
existence,  ever  alive  within  us,  but  generally 
veiled  and  sub-conscious.  It  brings  us,  as  it 
were,  into  the  ante-chamber  of  art,  poetry, 
and  music.  The  condition  is  one  of  excita- 
tion and  receptiveness,  where  art  may  speak 
and  we  shall  understand.  On  the  other  hand, 
the  condition  shows  a  certain  dethronement 
89 


EMERSON 

of  the  will  and  attention  which  may  ally  it  to 
the  hypnotic  state. 

Certain  kinds  of  poetry  imitate  this  method  of 
nature  by  calling  on  us  with  a  thousand  voices 
at  once.  Poetry  deals  often  with  vague  or  con- 
tradictory statements,  with  a  jumble  of  images, 
a  throng  of  impressions.  But  in  true  poetry 
the  psychology  of  real  life  is  closely  followed. 
The  mysticism  is  momentary.  We  are  not  kept 
suspended  in  a  limbo,  "  trembling  like  a  guilty 
thing  surprised,"  but  are  ushered  into  another 
world  of  thought  and  feeling.  On  the  other 
hand,  a  mere  statement  of  inconceivable  things 
is  the  rcductio  ad  absurdum  of  poetry,  because 
such  a  statement  puzzles  the  mind,  scatters 
the  attention,  and  does  to  a  certain  extent 
superinduce  the  "  blank  misgivings  "  of  mys- 
ticism. It  does  this,  however,  without  going 
further  and  filling  the  mind  with  new  life.  If 
I  bid  a  man  follow  my  reasoning  closely,  and 
then  say,  "  I  am  the  slayer  and  the  slain,  I  am 
the  doubter  and  the  doubt,"  I  puzzle  his  mind, 
and  may  succeed  in  reawakening  in  him  the 
sense  he  has  often  had  come  over  him  that  we 
are  ignorant  of  our  own  destinies  and  cannot 
grasp  the  meaning  of  life.  If  I  do  this,  noth- 
ing can  be  a  more  legitimate  opening  for  a 
poem,  for  it  is  an  opening  of  the  reader's 
mind.  Emerson,  like  many  other  highly  or- 
90 


EMERSON 

ganized  persons,  was  acquainted  with  the 
mystic  mood.  It  was  not  momentary  with 
him.  It  haunted  him,  and  he  seems  to  have 
believed  that  the  whole  of  poetry  and  religion 
was  contained  in  the  mood.  And  no  one  can 
gainsay  that  this  mental  condition  is  intimately 
connected  with  our  highest  feelings  and  leads 
directly  into  them. 

The  fault  with  Emerson  is  that  he  stops  in 
the  ante-chamber  of  poetry.  He  is  content 
if  he  has  brought  us  to  the  hypnotic  point. 
His  prologue  and  overture  are  excellent,  but 
where  is  the  argument  ?  Where  is  the  sub- 
stantial artistic  content  that  shall  feed  our 
souls  ? 

The  Sphinx  is  a  fair  example  of  an  Emerson 
poem.  The  opening  verses  are  musical, 
though  they  are  handicapped  by  a  reminis- 
cence of  the  German  way  of  writing.  In  the 
succeeding  verses  we  are  lapped  into  a  charm- 
ing reverie,  and  then  at  the  end  suddenly 
jolted  by  the  question,  "What  is  it  all 
about  ? "  In  this  poem  we  see  expanded 
into  four  or  five  pages  of  verse  an  experience 
which  in  real  life  endures  an  eighth  of  a  sec- 
ond, and  when  we  come  to  the  end  of  the 
mood  we  are  at  the  end  of  the  poem. 

There  is  no  question  that  the  power  to 
throw  your  sitter  into  a  receptive  mood  by  a 
91 


EMERSON 

pass  or  two  which  shall  give  you  his  virgin 
attention  is  necessary  to  any  artist.  Nobody 
has  the  knack  of  this  more  strongly  than 
Emerson  in  his  prose  writings.  By  a  phrase 
or  a  common  remark  he  creates  an  ideal  at- 
mosphere in  which  his  thought  has  the  direct- 
ness of  great  poetry.  But  he  cannot  do  it 
in  verse.  He  seeks  in  his  verse  to  do  the 
very  thing  which  he  avoids  doing  in  his  prose : 
follow  a  logical  method.  He  seems  to  know 
too  much  what  he  is  about,  and  to  be  content 
with  doing  too  little.  His  mystical  poems, 
from  the  point  of  view  of  such  criticism  as 
this,  are  all  alike  in  that  they  all  seek  to  do 
the  same  thing.  Nor  does  he  always  succeed. 
How  does  he  sometimes  fail  in  verse  to  say 
what  he  conveys  with  such  everlasting  happi- 
ness in  prose ! 

"  I  am  owner  of  the  sphere, 
Of  the  seven  stars  and  the  solar  year, 
Of  Caesar's  hand  and  Plato's  brain, 
Of  Lord  Christ's  heart  and  Shakespeare's  strain." 

In  these  lines  we  have  the  same  thought 
which  appears  a  few  pages  later  in  prose: 
"  All  that  Shakespeare  says  of  the  king, 
yonder  slip  of  a  boy  that  reads  in  the 
corner  feels  to  be  true  of  himself."  He  has 
failed  in  the  verse  because  he  has  thrown  a 
mystical  gloss  over  a  thought  which  was 
92 


EMERSON 

stronger  in  its  simplicity;  because  in  the 
verse  he  states  an  abstraction  instead  of  giving 
an  instance.  The  same  failure  follows  him 
sometimes  in  prose  when  he  is  too  conscious 
of  his  machinery. 

Emerson  knew  b_fot  the  sense  of  mystery 
accompanies  the  shift  of  an  absorbed  attention 
to  some  object  which  brings  the  mind  back  to 
the  present.  "  There  are  times  when  the 
cawing  of  a  crow,  a  weed,  a  snowflake,  a 
boy's  willow  whistle,  or  a  farmer  planting  in 
his  field  is  more  suggestive  to  the  mind  than 
the  Yosemite  gorge  or  the  Vatican  would  be 
in  another  hour.  In  like  mood,  an  old  verse, 
or  certain  words,  gleam  with  rare  significance." 
At  the  close  of  his  essay  on  History  he  is 
trying  to  make  us  feel  that  all  history,  in  so 
far  as  we  can  know  it,  is  within  ourselves,  and 
is  in  a  certain  sense  autobiography.  He  is 
speaking  of  the  Romans,  and  he  suddenly 
pretends  to  see  a  lizard  on  the  wall,  and 
proceeds  to  wonder  what  the  lizard  has  to  do 
with  the  Romans.  For  this  he  has  been  quite 
properly  laughed  at  by  Dr.  Holmes,  because 
he  has  resorted  to  an  artifice  and  has  failed  to 
create  an  illusion.  Indeed,  Dr.  Holmes  is 
somewhere  so  irreverent  as  to  remark  that  a 
gill  of  alcohol  will  bring  on  a  psychical  state 
very  similar  to  that  suggested  by  Emerson; 
93 


EMERSON 

and  Dr.  Holmes  is  accurately  happy  in  his 
jest,  because  alcohol  does  dislocate  the  atten- 
tion in  a  thoroughly  mystical  manner. 

There  is  throughout  Emerson's  poetry,  as 
throughout  all  of  the  New  England  poetry, 
too  much  thought,  too  much  argument. 
Some  of  his  verse  gives  the  reader  a  very 
curious  and  subtle  impression  that  the  lines 
are  a  translation.  This  is  because  he  is 
closely  following  a  thesis.  Indeed,  the  lines 
are  a  translation.  They  were  thought  first, 
and  poetry  afterwards.  Read  off  his.  poetry, 
and  you  see  through  the  scheme  of  it  at  once. 
Read  his  prose,  and  you  will  be  put  to  it  to 
make  out  the  connection  of  ideas.  The 
reason  is  that  in  the  poetry  the  sequence  is 
intellectual,  in  the  prose  the  sequence  is  emo- 
tional. It  is  no  mere  epigram  to  say  that  his 
poetry  is  governed  by  the  ordinary  laws  of 
prose  writing,  and  his  prose  by  the  laws  of 
poetry. 

The  lines  entitled  Days  have  a  dramatic 
vigor,  a  mystery,  and  a  music  all  their  own :  — 

"  Daughters  of  Time,  the  hypocritic  Days, 
Muffled  and  dumb  like  barefoot  dervishes, 
And  marching  single  in  an  endless  file, 
Bring  diadems  and  fagots  in  their  hands. 
To  each  they  offer  gifts  after  his  will, 
Bread,  kingdoms,  stars,  and  sky  that  holds  them  all. 

94 


EMERSON 

I,  in  my  pleached  garden,  watched  the  pomp, 
Forgot  my  morning  wishes,  hastily 
Took  a  few  herbs  and  apples,  and  the  Day 
Turned  and  departed  silent.     I,  too  late, 
Under  her  solemn  fillet  saw  the  scorn." 

The  prose  version  of  these  lines,  which  in 
this  case  is  inferior,  is  to  be  found  in  Works  and 
Days  :  "  He  only  is  rich  who  owns  the  day.  .  .  . 
They  come  and  go  like  muffled  and  veiled 
figures,  sent  from  a  distant  friendly  party ;  but 
they  say  nothing,  and  if  we  do  not  use  the 
gifts  they  bring,  they  carry  them  as  silently 
away." 

That  Emerson  had  within  him  the  soul  of 
a  poet  no  one  will  question,  but  his  poems 
are  expressed  in  prose  forms.  There  are 
passages  in  his  early  addresses  which  can  be 
matched  in  English  only  by  bits  from  Sir 
Thomas  Browne  or  Milton,  or  from  the  great 
poets.  Heine  might  have  written  the  follow- 
ing parable  into  verse,  but  it  could  not  have 
been  finer.  It  comes  from  the  very  bottom 
of  Emerson's  nature.  It  is  his  uttermost. 
Infancy  and  manhood  and  old  age,  the  first 
and  the  last  of  him,  speak  in  it. 

"  Every  god  is  there  sitting  in  his  sphere. 
The  young  mortal  enters  the  hall  of  the  firma- 
ment ;  there  is  he  alone  with  them  alone,  they 
pouring  on  him  benedictions  and  gifts,  and 
95 


EMERSON 

beckoning  him  up  to  their  thrones.  On  the 
instant,  and  incessantly,  fall  snowstorms  of 
illusions.  He  fancies  himself  in  a  vast  crowd 
which  sways  this  way  and  that,  and  whose 
movements  and  doings  he  must  obey;  he 
fancies  himself  poor,  orphaned,  insignificant. 
The  mad  crowd  drives  hither  and  thither,  now 
furiously  commanding  this  thing  to  be  done, 
now  that.  What  is  he  that  he  should  resist 
their  will,  and  think  or  act  for  himself?  Every 
moment  new  changes  and  new  showers  of 
deceptions  to  baffle  and  distract  him.  And 
when,  by  and  by,  for  an  instant,  the  air  clears 
and  the  cloud  lifts  a  little,  there  are  the  gods 
still  sitting  around  him  on  their  thrones,  — 
they  alone  with  him  alone." 

With  the  war  closes  the  colonial  period  of 
our  history,  and  with  the  end  of  the  war 
begins  our  national  life.  Before  that  time  it 
was  not  possible  for  any  man  to  speak  for  the 
nation,  however  much  he  might  long  to,  for 
there  was  no  nation  ;  there  were  only  discord- 
ant provinces  held  together  by  the  exercise 
on  the  part  of  each  of  a  strong  and  conscien- 
tious will.  It  is  too  much  to  expect  that 
national  character  shall  be  expressed  before 
it  is  developed,  or  that  the  arts  shall  flourish 
during  a  period  when  everybody  is  preoccu- 
96 


EMERSON 

pied  with  the  fear  of  revolution.  The  provin- 
cial note  which  runs  through  all  our  literature 
down  to  the  war  resulted  in  one  sense  from 
our  dependence  upon  Europe.  "  All  Ameri- 
can manners,  language,  and  writings,"  says 
Emerson,  "  are  derivative.  We  do  not  write 
from  facts,  but  we  wish  to  state  the  facts  after 
the  English  manner.  It  is  the  tax  we  pay  for 
the  splendid  inheritance  of  English  Litera- 
ture." But  in  a  deeper  sense  this  very 
dependence  upon  Europe  was  due  to  our  dis- 
union among  ourselves.  The  equivocal  and 
unhappy  self-assertive  patriotism  to  which  we 
were  consigned  by  fate,  and  which  made  us 
perceive  and  resent  the  condescension  of 
foreigners,  was  the  logical  outcome  of  our 
political  situation. 

The  literature  of  the  Northern  States  before 
the  war,  although  full  of  talent,  lacks  body, 
lacks  courage.  It  has  not  a  full  national  tone. 
The  South  is  not  in  it.  New  England's  share 
in  this  literature  is  so  large  that  small  injustice 
will  be  done  if  we  give  her  credit  for  all  of  it. 
She  was  the  Academy  of  the  land,  and  her 
scholars  were  our  authors.  The  country  at 
large  has  sometimes  been  annoyed  at  the  self- 
consciousness  of  New  England,  at  the  atmos- 
phere of  clique,  of  mutual  admiration,  of 
isolation,  in  which  all  her  scholars,  except 
7  97 


EMERSON 

Emerson,  have  lived,  and  which  notably  en- 
veloped the  last  little  distinguished  group  of 
them.  The  circumstances  which  led  to  the 
isolation  of  Lowell,  Holmes,  Longfellow,  and 
the  Saturday  Club  fraternity  are  instructive. 
The  ravages  of  the  war  carried  off  the  poets, 
scholars,  and  philosophers  of  the  generation 
which  immediately  followed  these  men,  and 
by  destroying  their  natural  successors  left 
them  standing  magnified  beyond  their  natural 
size,  like  a  grove  of  trees  left  by  a  fire.  The 
war  did  more  than  kill  off  a  generation  of 
scholars  who  would  have  succeeded  these 
older  scholars.  It  emptied  the  universities 
by  calling  all  the  survivors  into  the  field  of 
practical  life;  and  after  the  war  ensued  a 
period  during  which  all  the  learning  of  the 
land  was  lodged  in  the  heads  of  these  older 
worthies  who  had  made  their  mark  long  be- 
fore. A  certain  complacency  which  piqued 
the  country  at  large  was  seen  in  these  men. 
An  ante-bellum  colonial  posing,  inevitable  in 
their  own  day,  survived  with  them.  When 
Jared  Sparks  put  Washington  in  the  proper 
attitude  for  greatness  by  correcting  his  spell- 
ing, Sparks  was  in  cue  with  the  times.  It  was 
thought  that  a  great  man  must  have  his  hat 
handed  to  him  by  his  biographer,  and  be 
ushered  on  with  decency  toward  posterity. 
98 


EMERSON 

In  the  lives  and  letters  of  some  of  our  re- 
cent public  men  there  has  been  a  reminis- 
cence of  this  posing,  which  we  condemn  as 
absurd  because  we  forget  it  is  merely  archaic. 
Provincial  manners  are  always  a  little  formal, 
and  the  pomposity  of  the  colonial  governor 
was  never  quite  worked  out  of  our  literary 
men. 

Let  us  not  disparage  the  past.  We  are  all 
grateful  for  the  New  England  culture,  and 
especially  for  the  little  group  of  men  in  Cam- 
bridge and  Boston  who  did  their  best  accord- 
ing to  the  light  of  their  day.  Their  purpose 
and  taste  did  all  that  high  ideals  and  good 
taste  can  do,  and  no  more  eminent  literati 
have  lived  during  this  century.  They  gave 
the  country  songs,  narrative  poems,  odes, 
epigrams,  essays,  novels.  They  chose  their 
models  well,  and  drew  their  materials  from 
decent  and  likely  sources.  They  lived  stain- 
less lives,  and  died  in  their  professors'  chairs 
honored  by  all  men.  For  achievements  of 
this  sort  we  need  hardly  use  as  strong  lan- 
guage as  Emerson  does  in  describing  con- 
temporary literature :  "  It  exhibits  a  vast 
carcass  of  tradition  every  year  with  as  much 
solemnity  as  a  new  revelation." 

The  mass  and  volume  of  literature  must  al- 
ways be  traditional,  and  the  secondary  writers 
99 


EMERSON 

of  the  world  do  nevertheless  perform  a  func- 
tion of  infinite  consequence  in  the  spread  of 
thought.  A  very  large  amount  of  first-hand 
thinking  is  not  comprehensible  to  the  average 
man  until  it  has  been  distilled  and  is  fifty 
years  old.  The  men  who  welcome  new  learn- 
ing as  it  arrives  are  the  picked  men,  the 
minor  poets  of  the  next  age.  To  their  own 
times  these  secondary  men  often  seem  great 
because  they  are  recognized  and  understood 
at  once.  We  know  the  disadvantage  under 
which  these  Humanists  of  ours  worked.  The 
shadow  of  the  time  in  which  they  wrote  hangs 
over  us  still.  The  conservatism  and  timidity 
of  our  politics  and  of  our  literature  to-day  are 
due  in  part  to  th  ^t  fearful  pressure  which  for 
sixty  years  was  li^ver  lifted  from  the  souls  of 
Americans.  That  conservatism  and  timidity 
may  be  seen  in  all  our  past.  They  are  in 
the  rhetoric  of  Webster  and  in  the  style  of 
Hawthorne.  They  killed  Poe.  They  created 
Bryant. 

Since  the  close  of  our  most  blessed  war, 
we  have  been  left  to  face  the  problems 
of  democracy,  unhampered  by  the  terrible 
complications  of  sectional  strife.  It  has 
happened,  however,  that  some  of  the  ten- 
dencies of  our  commercial  civilization  go 
toward  strengthening  and    riveting  upon    us 

IOO 


EMERSON 

the  very  traits  encouraged  by  provincial 
disunion.  Wendell  Phillips,  with  a  cool 
grasp  of  understanding  for  which  he  is  not 
generally  given  credit,  states  the  case  as 
follows :  — 

"  The  general  judgment  is  that  the  freest 
possible  government  produces  the  freest  pos- 
sible men  and  women,  the  most  individual, 
the  least  servile  to  the  judgment  of  others. 
But  a  moment's  reflection  will  show  any  man 
that  this  is  an  unreasonable  expectation,  and 
that,  on  the  contrary,  entire  equality  and  free- 
dom in  political  forms  almost  invariably  tend 
to  make  the  individual  subside  into  the  mass 
and  lose  his  identity  in  ':he  general  whole. 
Suppose  we  stood  in  England  to-night.  There 
is  the  nobility,  and  here  is  the  church.  There 
is  the  trading  class,  and  here  is  the  literary. 
A  broad  gulf  separates  the  four;  and  pro- 
vided a  member  of  either  can  conciliate  his 
own  section,  he  can  afford  in  a  very  large 
measure  to  despise  the  opinions  of  the  other 
three.  He  has  to  some  extent  a  refuge  and  a 
breakwater  against  the  tyranny  of  what  we 
call  public  opinion.  But  in  a  country  like 
ours,  of  absolute  democratic  equality,  public 
opinion  is  not  only  omnipotent,  it  is  omni- 
present. There  is  no  refuge  from  its  tyranny, 
there  is  no  hiding  from  its   reach;   and  the 

IOI 


EMERSON 

result  is  that  if  you  take  the  old  Greek  lantern 
and  go  about  to  seek  among  a  hundred,  you 
will  find  not  one  single  American  who  has 
not,  or  who  does  not  fancy  at  least  that  he 
has,  something  to  gain  or  lose  in  his  ambition, 
his  social  life,  or  his  business,  from  the  good 
opinion  and  the  votes  of  those  around  him. 
And  the  consequence  is  that  instead  of  being 
a  mass  of  individuals,  each  one  fearlessly  blurt- 
ing out  his  own  convictions,  as  a  nation,  com- 
pared to  other  nations,  we  are  a  mass  of 
cowards.  More  than  all  other  people,  we  are 
afraid  of  each  other." 

.If  we  take  a  bird's-eye  view  of  our  history, 
we  shall  find  that  this  constant  element  of 
democratic  pressure  has  always  been  so 
strong  a  factor  in  moulding  the  character  of 
our  citizens,  that  there  is  less  difference  than 
we  could  wish  to  see  between  the  types  of 
citizenship  produced  before  the  war  and  after 
the  war. 

Charles  Follen,  that  excellent  and  worthy 
German  who  came  to  this  country  while  still 
a  young  man  and  who  lived  in  the  midst  of 
the  social  and  intellectual  life  of  Boston,  felt 
the  want  of  intellectual  freedom  in  the  people 
about  him.  If  one  were  obliged  to  describe 
the  America  of  to-day  in  a  single  sentence, 
one  could  hardly  do  it  better  than  by  a  sen- 
102 


EMERSON 

tence  from  a  letter  of  Follen  to  Harriet  Mar- 
tineau  written  in  1837,  after  the  appearance 
of  one  of  her  books :  "  You  have  pointed 
out  the  two  most  striking  national  charac- 
teristics, '  Deficiency  of  individual  moral  in- 
dependence and  extraordinary  mutual  respect 
and  kindness.'  " 

Much  of  what  Emerson  wrote  about  the 
United  States  in  1850  is  true  of  the  United 
States  to-day.  It  would  be  hard  to  find  a 
civilized  people  who  are  more  timid,  more 
cowed  in  spirit,  more  illiberal,  than  we.  It 
is  easy  to-day  for  the  educated  man  who 
has  read  Bryce  and  Tocqueville  to  account 
for  the  mediocrity  of  American  literature. 
The  merit  of  Emerson  was  that  he  felt  the 
atmospheric  pressure  without  knowing  its 
reason.  He  felt  he  was  a  cabined,  cribbed, 
confined  creature,  although  every  man  about 
him  was  celebrating  Liberty  and  Democracy, 
and  every  day  was  Fourth  of  July.  He  taxes 
language  to  its  limits  in  order  to  express  his 
revolt.  He  says  that  no  man  should  write 
except  what  he  has  discovered  in  the  process 
of  satisfying  his  own  curiosity,  and  that  every 
man  will  write  well  in  proportion  as  he  has 
contempt  for  the  public. 

Emerson  seems  really  to  have  believed  that 
if  any  man  would  only  resolutely  be  himself, 
103 


EMERSON 

he  would  turn  out  to  be  as  great  as  Shake- 
speare. He  will  not  have  it  that  anything  of 
value  can  be  monopolized.  His  review  of  the 
world,  whether  under  the  title  of  Manners, 
Self-Reliance,  Fate,  Experience,  or  what-not, 
leads  him  to  the  same  thought.  His  conclu- 
sion is  always  the  finding  of  eloquence, 
courage,  art,  intellect,  in  the  breast  of  the 
humblest  reader.  He  knows  that  we  are  full 
of  genius  and  surrounded  by  genius,  and  that 
we  have  only  to  throw  something  off,  not  to 
acquire  any  new  thing,  in  order  to  be  bards, 
prophets,  Napoleons,  and  Goethes.  This 
belief  is  the  secret  of  his  stimulating  power. 
It  is  this  which  gives  ^:z  writings  a  radiance 
like  that  which  shone  f:om  his  personality. 

The  deep  truth  shadowed  forth  by  Emerson 
when  he  said  that  "  all  the  American  geniuses 
lacked  nerve  and  dagger  "  was  illustrated  by 
our  best  scholar.  Lowell  had  the  soul  of  the 
Yankee,  but  in  his  habits  of  writing  he  con- 
tinued English  tradition.  His  literary  essays 
are  full  of  charm.  The  Commemoration  Ode 
is  the  high-water  mark  of  the  attempt  to  do 
the  impossible.  It  is  a  fine  thing,  but  it  is 
imitative  and  secondary.  It  has  paid  the  in- 
heritance tax.  Twice,  however,  at  a  crisis  of 
pressure,  Lowell  assumed  his  real  self  under 
the  guise  of  a  pseudonym ;  and  with  his 
104 


EMERSON 

own  hand  he  rescued  a  language,  a  type,  a 
whole  era  of  civilization  from  oblivion.  Here 
gleams  the  dagger  and  here  is  Lowell  re- 
vealed. His  limitations  as  a  poet,  his  too 
much  wit,  his  too  much  morality,  his  mixture 
of  shrewdness  and  religion,  are  seen  to  be  the 
very  elements  of  power.  The  novelty  of  the 
Biglow  Papers  is  as  wonderful  as  their  world- 
old  naturalness.  They  take  rank  with  great- 
ness, and  they  were  the  strongest  political 
tracts  of  their  time.  They  imitate  nothing; 
they  are  real. 

Emerson  himself  was  the  only  man  of  his 
times  who  consistently  and  utterly  expressed 
himself,  never  measuring  Luiself  for  a  moment 
with  the  ideals  of  others,  never  troubling  him- 
self for  a  moment  with  what  literature  was  or 
how  literature  should  be  created.  The  other 
men  of  his  epoch,  and  among  whom  he  lived, 
believed  that  literature  was  a  very  desirable 
article,  a  thing  you  could  create  if  you  were 
only  smart  enough.  But  Emerson  had  no 
literary  ambition.  He  cared  nothing  for 
belles-lettres.  The  consequence  is  that  he 
stands  above  his  age  like  a  colossus.  While 
he  lived  his  figure  could  be  seen  from  Europe 
towering  like  Atlas  over  the  culture  of  the 
United  States. 

Great  men  are  not  always  like  wax  which 
IOS 


EMERSON 

their  age  imprints.  They  are  often  the  mere 
negation  and  opposite  of  their  age.  They 
give  it  the  lie.  They  become  by  revolt  the 
very  essence  of  all  the  age  is  not,  and  that 
part  of  the  spirit  which  is  suppressed  in  ten 
thousand  breasts  gets  lodged,  isolated,  and 
breaks  into  utterance  in  one.  Through 
Emerson  spoke  the  fractional  spirits  of  a 
multitude.  He  had  not  time,  he  had  not 
energy  left  over  to  understand  himself;  he 
was  a  mouthpiece. 

If  a  soul  be  taken  and  crushed  by  democ- 
racy till  it  utter  a  cry,  that  cry  will  be  Emer- 
son. The  region  of  thought  he  lived  in,  the 
figures  of  speech  he  uses,  are  of  an  intellectual 
plane  so  high  that  the  circumstances  which 
produced  them  may  be  forgotten ;  they  are 
indifferent.  The  Constitution,  Slavery,  the 
War  itself,  are  seen  as  mere  circumstances. 
They  did  not  confuse  him  while  he  lived ; 
they  are  not  necessary  to  support  his  work 
now  that  it  is  finished.  Hence  comes  it  that 
Emerson  is  one  of  the  world's  voices.  He 
was  heard  afar  off.  His  foreign  influence 
might  deserve  a  chapter  by  itself.  Conser- 
vatism is  not  confined  to  this  country.  It  is 
the  very  basis  of  all  government.  The  bolts 
Emerson  forged,  his  thought,  his  wit,  his  per- 
ception, are  not  provincial.  They  were  found 
1 06 


EMERSON 

to  carry  inspiration  to  England  and  Germany. 
Many  of  the  important  men  of  the  last  half- 
century  owe  him  a  debt.  It  is  not  yet  possi- 
ble to  give  any  account  of  his  influence 
abroad,  because  the  memoirs  which  will  show 
it  are  only  beginning  to  be  published.  We 
shall  have  them  in  due  time ;  for  Emerson 
was  an  outcome  of  the  world's  progress. 
His  appearance  marks  the  turning-point  in 
the  history  of  that  enthusiasm  for  pure 
democracy  which  has  tinged  the  political 
thought  of  the  world  for  the  past  one  hun- 
dred and  fifty  years.  The  youths  of  England 
and  Germany  may  have  been  surprised  at 
hearing  from  America  a  piercing  voice  of 
protest  against  the  very  influences  which  were 
crushing  them  at  home.  They  could  not 
realize  that  the  chief  difference  between 
Europe  and  America  is  a  difference  in  the 
rate  of  speed  with  which  revolutions  in 
thought  are  worked  out. 

While  the  radicals  of  Europe  were  revolt- 
ing in  1848  against  the  abuses  of  a  tyranny 
whose  roots  were  in  feudalism,  Emerson,  the 
great  radical  of  America,  the  arch-radical  of 
the  world,  was  revolting  against  the  evils 
whose  roots  were  in  universal  suffrage.  By 
showing  the  identity  in  essence  of  all  tyranny, 
and  by  bringing  back  the  attention  of  politi- 
107 


EMERSON 

cal  thinkers  to  its  starting-point,  the  value  of 
human  character,  he  has  advanced  the  politi- 
cal thought  of  the  world  by  one  step.  He 
has  pointed  out  for  us  in  this  country  to 
what  end  our  efforts  must  be  bent. 


108 


WALT    WHITMAN 


WALT    WHITMAN 

It  would  be  an  ill  turn  for  an  essay-writer 
to  destroy  Walt  Whitman,  —  for  he  was  dis- 
covered by  the  essayists,  and  but  for  them 
his  notoriety  would  have  been  postponed 
for  fifty  years.  He  is  the  mare's  nest  of 
"American  Literature,"  and  scarce  a  contrib- 
utor to  The  Saturday  Review  but  has  at 
one  time  or  another  raised  a  flag  over  him. 

The  history  of  these  chronic  discoveries  of 
Whitman  as  a  poet,  as  a  force,  as  a  some- 
thing or  a  somebody,  would  write  up  into 
the  best  possible  monograph  on  the  incom- 
petency of  the  Anglo-Saxon  in  matters  of 
criticism. 

English  literature  is  the  literature  of 
genius,  and  the  Englishman  is  the  great 
creator.  His  work  outshines  the  genius  of 
Greece.  His  wealth  outvalues  the  combined 
wealth  of  all  modern  Europe.  The  English 
mind  is  the  only  unconscious  mind  the  world 
has  ever  seen.  And  for  this  reason  the 
English  mind  is  incapable  of  criticism. 
in 


WALT  WHITMAN 

There  has  never  been  an  English  critic  of 
the  first  rank,  hardly  a  critic  of  any  rank; 
and  the  critical  work  of  England  consists 
either  of  an  academical  bandying  of  a  few 
old  canons  and  shibboleths  out  of  Horace  or 
Aristotle,  or  else  of  the  merest  impression- 
ism, and  wordy  struggle  to  convey  the  sen- 
timent awakened  by  the  thing  studied. 

Now,  true  criticism  means  an  attempt  to 
find  out  what  something  is,  not  for  the  pur- 
pose of  judging  it,  or  of  imitating  it,  nor  for 
the  purpose  of  illustrating  something  else, 
nor  for  any  other  ulterior  purpose  whatever. 

The  so-called  canons  of  criticism  are  of 
about  as  much  service  to  a  student  of  liter- 
ature as  the  Nicene  Creed  and  the  Lord's 
Prayer  are  to  the  student  of  church  history. 
They  are  a  part  of  his  subject,  of  course, 
but  if  he  insists  upon  using  them  as  a  tape 
measure  and  a  divining-rod  he  will  produce 
a  judgment  of  no  possible  value  to  any  one, 
and  interesting  only  as  a  record  of  a  most 
complex  state  of  mind. 

The  educated  gentlemen  of  England  have 
surveyed  literature  with  these  time-honored 
old  instruments,  and  hordes  of  them  long 
ago  rushed  to  America  with  their  theodolites 
and  their  quadrants  in  their  hands.  They 
sized   us  up  and  they  sized   us  down,    and 

112 


WALT  WHITMAN 

they  never  could  find  greatness  in  literature 
among  us  till  Walt  Whitman  appeared  and 
satisfied  the  astrologers. 

Here  was  a  comet,  a  man  of  the  people, 
a  new  man,  who  spoke  no  known  language, 
who  was  very  uncouth  and  insulting,  who 
proclaimed  himself  a  "barbaric  yawp,"  and 
who  corresponded  to  the  English  imagination 
with  the  unpleasant  and  rampant  wildness 
of  everything,  in  America,  —  with  Mormon- 
ism  and  car  factories,  steamboat  explosions, 
strikes,  repudiation,  and  whiskey;  whose 
form  violated  every  one  of  their  minor 
canons  as  America  violated  every  one  of 
their  social  ideas. 

Then,  too,  Whitman  arose  out  of  the  war, 
as  Shakespeare  arose  out  of  the  destruction 
of  the  Armada,  as  the  Greek  poets  arose  out 
of  the  repulse  of  the  Persians.  It  was  impos- 
sible, it  was  unprecedented,  that  a  national 
revulsion  should  not  produce  national  poetry 
—  and  lo!  here  was  Whitman. 

It  may  safely  be  said  that  the  discovery 
of  Whitman  as  a  poet  caused  many  a  hard- 
thinking  Oxford  man  to  sleep  quietly  at 
night.     America  was  solved. 

The  Englishman  travels,  but  he  travels 
after  his  mind  has  been  burnished  by  the 
university,  and  at  an  age  when  the  best  he 

8  113 


WALT   WHITMAN 

can  do  in  the  line  of  thought  is  to  make  an 
intelligent  manipulation  of  the  few  notions 
he  leaves  home  with.  He  departs  an  edu- 
cated gentleman,  taking  with  him  his  port- 
manteau and  his  ideas.  He  returns  a  travelled 
gentleman,  bringing  with  him  his  ideas  and 
his  portmanteau.  He  would  as  soon  think 
of  getting  his  coats  from  Kansas  as  his 
thoughts  from  travel.  And  therefore  every 
impression  of  America  which  the  travelling 
Englishman  experienced  confirmed  his  theory 
of  Whitman.  Even  Rudyard  Kipling,  who 
does  not  in  any  sense  fall  under  the  above 
description,  has  enough  Anglo-Saxon  blood 
in  him  to  see  in  this  country  only  the  ful- 
filment of  the  fantastic  notions  of  his  child- 
hood. 

But  imagine  an  Oxford  man  who  had  eyes 
in  his  head,  and  who  should  come  to  this 
country,  never  having  heard  of  Whitman. 
He  would  see  an  industrious  and  narrow- 
minded  population,  commonplace  and  monot- 
onous, so  uniform  that  one  man  can  hardly 
be  distinguished  from  another,  law-abiding, 
timid,  and  traditional;  a  community  where 
the  individual  is  suppressed  by  law,  custom, 
and  instinct,  and  in  which,  by  consequence, 
there  are  few  or  no  great  men,  even  count- 
ing those  men  thrust  by  necessary  operation 
114 


WALT   WHITMAN 

of  the  laws  of  trade  into  commercial  prom- 
inence, and  who  claim  scientific  rather  than 
personal  notice. 

The  culture  of  this  people,  its  archi- 
tecture, letters,  drama,  etc.,  he  would  find 
were,  of  necessity,  drawn  from  European 
models;  and  in  its  poetry,  so  far  as  poetry 
existed,  he  would  recognize  a  somewhat 
feeble  imitation  of  English  poetry.  The 
newspaper  verses  very  fairly  represent  the 
average  talent  for  poetry  and  average  appre- 
ciation of  it,  and  the  newspaper  verse  of  the 
United  States  is  precisely  what  one  would 
expect  from  a  decorous  and  unimaginative 
population,  —  intelligent,  conservative,  and 
uninspired. 

Above  the  newspaper  versifiers  float  the 
minor  poets,  and  above  these  soar  the  greater 
poets;  and  the  characteristics  of  the  whole 
hierarchy  are  the  same  as  those  of  the  hum- 
blest acolyte,  —  intelligence,  conservatism, 
conventional  morality. 

Above  the  atmosphere  they  live  in,  above 
the  heads  of  all  the  American  poets,  and 
between  them  and  the  sky,  float  the  Consti- 
tution of  the  United  States  and  the  tradi- 
tions and  forms  of  English  literature. 

This  whole  culture  is  secondary  and  ter- 
tiary,   and    it  truly  represents   the    respect- 
"5 


WALT  WHITMAN 

able  mediocrity  from  which  it  emanates. 
Whittier  and  Longfellow  have  been  much 
read  in  their  day,  —  read  by  mill-hands  and 
clerks  and  school-teachers,  by  lawyers  and 
doctors  and  divines,  by  the  reading  classes  of 
the  republic,  whose  ideals  they  truly  spoke 
for,  whose  yearnings  and  spiritual  life  they 
truly  expressed. 

Now,  the  Oxford  traveller  would  not  have 
found  Whitman  at  all.  He  would  never  have 
met  a  man  who  had  heard  of  him,  nor  seen  a 
man  like  him. 

The  traveller,  as  he  opened  his  Saturday 
Review  upon  his  return  to  London,  and 
read  the  current  essay  on  Whitman,  would 
have  been  faced  by  a  problem  fit  to  puzzle 
Montesquieu,   a  problem  to  floor  Goethe. 

And  yet  Whitman  is  representative.  He 
is  a  real  product,  he  has  a  real  and  most 
interesting  place  in  the  history  of  literature, 
and  he  speaks  for  a  class  and  type  of  human 
nature  whose  interest  is  more  than  local, 
whose  prevalence  is  admitted, —  a  type  which 
is  one  of  the  products  of  the  civilization  of 
the  century,  perhaps  of  all  centuries,  and 
which  has  a  positively  planetary  significance. 

There  are,  in  every  country,  individuals 
who,  after  a  sincere  attempt  to  take  a  place 
in  organized  society,  revolt  from  the  drudgery 
116 


WALT   WHITMAN 

of  it,  content  themselves  with  the  simplest 
satisfactions  of  the  grossest  need  of  nature, 
so  far  as  subsistence  is  concerned,  and  re- 
discover the  infinite  pleasures  of  life  in  the 
open  air. 

If  the  roadside,  the  sky,  the  distant  town, 
the  soft  buffeting  of  the  winds  of  heaven, 
are  a  joy  to  the  aesthetic  part  of  man, 
the  freedom  from  all  responsibility  and  ac- 
countability is  Nirvana  to  his  moral  nature. 
A  man  who  has  once  tasted  these  two  joys 
together,  the  joy  of  being  in  the  open  air  and 
the  joy  of  being  disreputable  and  unashamed, 
has  touched  an  experience  which  the  most 
close-knit  and  determined  nature  might  well 
dread.  Life  has  no  terrors  for  such  a  man. 
Society  has  no  hold  on  him.  The  trifling 
inconveniences  of  the  mode  of  life  are  as 
nothing  compared  with  its  satisfactions. 
The  worm  that  never  dies  is  dead  in  him. 
The  great  mystery  of  consciousness  and  of 
effort  is  quietly  dissolved  into  the  vacant 
happiness  of  sensation,  — -not  base  sensation, 
but  the  sensation  of  the  dawn  and  the  sun- 
set, of  the  mart  and  the  theatre,  and  the 
stars,  the  panorama  of  the  universe. 

To  the  moral  man,  to  the  philosopher  or 
the  business  man,  to  any  one  who  is  a  cog 
in  the  wheel  of  some  republic,  all  these 
117 


WALT  WHITMAN 

things  exist  for  the  sake  of  something  else. 
He  must  explain  or  make  use  of  them,  or 
define  his  relation  to  them.  He  spends  the 
whole  agony  of  his  existence  in  an  endeavor 
to  docket  them  and  deal  with  them.  Ham- 
pered as  he  is  by  all  that  has  been  said  and 
done  before,  he  yet  feels  himself  driven  on 
to  summarize,  and  wreak  himself  upon  the 
impossible  task  of  grasping  this  cosmos 
with  his  mind,  of  holding  it  in  his  hand, 
of  subordinating  it  to  his  purpose. 

The  tramp  is  freed  from  all  this.  By  an 
act  as  simple  as  death,  he  has  put  off  effort 
and  lives  in  peace. 

It  is  no  wonder  that  every  country  in 
Europe  shows  myriads  of  these  men,  as  it 
shows  myriads  of  suicides  annually.  It  is 
no  wonder,  though  the  sociologists  have  been 
late  in  noting  it,  that  specimens  of  the  type 
are  strikingly  identical  in  feature  in  every 
country  of  the  globe. 

The  habits,  the  physique,  the  tone  of 
mind,  even  the  sign-language  and  some  of 
the  catch-words,  of  tramps  are  the  same 
everywhere.  The  men  are  not  natally  out- 
casts. They  have  always  tried  civilized  life. 
Their  early  training,  at  least  their  early  atti- 
tude of  mind  towards  life,  has  generally  been 
respectable.  That  they  should  be  criminally 
118 


WALT  WHITMAN 

inclined  goes  without  saying,  because  their 
minds  have  been  freed  from  the  sanctions 
which  enforce  law.  But  their  general  inno- 
cence is,  under  the  circumstances,  very  re- 
markable, and  distinguishes  them  from  the 
criminal  classes. 

When  we  see  one  of  these  men  sitting  on 
a  gate,  or  sauntering  down  a  city  street,  how 
often  have  we  wondered  how  life  appeared 
to  him;  what  solace  and  what  problems  it 
presented.  How  often  have  we  longed  to 
know  the  history  of  such  a  soul,  told,  not 
by  the  police-blotter,  but  by  the  poet  or 
novelist  in  the  heart  of  the  man ! 

Walt  Whitman  has  given  utterance  to 
the  soul  of  the  tramp.  A  man  of  genius 
has  passed  sincerely  and  normally  through 
this  entire  experience,  himself  unconscious 
of  what  he  was,  and  has  left  a  record  of 
it  to  enlighten  and  bewilder  the  literary 
world. 

In  Whitman's  works  the  elemental  parts 
of  a  man's  mind  and  the  fragments  of  imper- 
fect education  maybe  seen  merging  together, 
floating  and  sinking  in  a  sea  of  insensate 
egotism  and  rhapsody,  repellent,  divine,  dis- 
gusting, extraordinary. 

Our  inability  to  place  the  man  intellec- 
tually,  and  find   a   type  and  reason  for  his 
119 


WALT  WHITMAN 

intellectual  state,  comes  from  this:  that  the 
revolt  he  represents  is  not  an  intellectual 
revolt.  Ideas  are  not  at  the  bottom  of  it. 
It  is  a  revolt  from  drudgery.  It  is  the 
revolt  of  laziness. 

There  is  no  intellectual  coherence  in  his 
talk,  but  merely  pathological  coherence. 
Can  the  insulting  jumble  of  ignorance  and 
effrontery,  of  scientific  phrase  and  French 
paraphrase,  of  slang  and  inspired  adjective, 
which  he  puts  forward  with  the  pretence 
that  it  represents  thought,  be  regarded,  from 
any  possible  point  of  view,  as  a  philosophy, 
or  a  system,  or  a  belief?  Is  it  individualism 
of  any  statable  kind?  Do  the  thoughts  and 
phrases  which  float  about  in  it  have  a  mean- 
ing which  bears  any  relation  to  the  meaning 
they  bear  in  the  language  of  thinkers?  Cer- 
tainly not.  Does  all  the  patriotic  talk,  the 
talk  about  the  United  States  and  its  future, 
have  any  significance  as  patriotism?  Does 
it  poetically  represent  the  state  of  feeling  of 
any  class  of  American  citizens  towards  their 
country?  Or  would  you  find  the  nearest 
equivalent  to  this  emotion  in  the  breast  of 
the  educated  tramp  of  France,  or  Germany, 
or  England  ?  The  speech  of  Whitman  is 
English,  and  his  metaphors  and  catch-words 
are  apparently  American,  but  the  emotional 
120 


WALT  WHITMAN 

content    is  cosmic.      He    put  off   patriotism 
when  he  took  to  the  road. 

The  attraction  exercised  by  his  writings 
is  due  to  their  flashes  of  reality.  Of  course 
the  man  was  a  poseur,  a  most  horrid  mounte- 
bank and  ego-maniac.  His  tawdry  scraps 
of  misused  idea,  of  literary  smartness,  of 
dog-eared  and  greasy  reminiscence,  repel  us. 
The  world  of  men  remained  for  him  as  his 
audience,  and  he  did  to  civilized  society  the 
continuous  compliment  of  an  insane  self- 
consciousness  in  its  presence. 

Perhaps  this  egotism  and  posturing  is  the 
revenge  of  a  stilled  conscience,  and  we  ought 
to  read  in  it  the  inversion  of  the  social 
instincts.  Perhaps  all  tramps  are  poseurs. 
But  there  is  this  to  be  said  for  Whitman, 
that  whether  or  not  his  posing  was  an  acci- 
dent of  a  personal  nature,  or  an  organic  re- 
sult of  his  life,  he  was  himself  an  authentic 
creature.  He  did  not  sit  in  a  study  and 
throw  off  his  saga  of  balderdash,  but  he  lived 
a  life,  and  it  is  by  his  authenticity,  and  not 
by  his  poses,  that  he  has  survived. 

The  descriptions  of  nature,  the  visual 
observation  of  life,  are  first-hand  and  won- 
derful. It  was  no  false  light  that  led  the 
Oxonians  to  call  some  of  his  phrases  Homeric. 
The  pundits  were  right  in  their  curiosity  over 

121 


WALT  WHITMAN 

him;  they  went  astray  only  in  their  attempt 
at  classification. 

It  is  a  pity  that  truth  and  beauty  turn  to 
cant  on  the  second  delivery,  for  it  makes 
poetry,  as  a  profession,  impossible.  The 
lyric  poets  have  always  spent  most  of  their 
time  in  trying  to  write  lyric  poetry,  and  the 
very  attempt  disqualifies  them. 

A  poet  who  discovers  his  mission  is  already 
half  done  for;  and  even  Wordsworth,  great 
genius  though  he  was,  succeeded  in  half 
drowning  his  talents  in  his  parochial 
theories,  in  his  own  self-consciousness  and 
self-conceit. 

Walt  Whitman  thought  he  had  a  mission. 
He  was  a  professional  poet.  He  had  pur- 
poses and  theories  about  poetry  which  he 
started  out  to  enforce  and  illustrate.  He  is 
as  didactic  as  Wordsworth,  and  is  thinking 
of  himself  the  whole  time.  He  belonged, 
moreover,  to  that  class  of  professionals  who 
are  always  particularly  self-centred,  auto- 
cratic, vain,  and  florid,  — the  class  of  quacks. 
There  are,  throughout  society,  men,  and  they 
are  generally  men  of  unusual  natural  powers, 
who,  after  gaining  a  little  unassimilated 
education,  launch  out  for  themselves  and 
set  up  as  authorities  on  their  own  account. 
They  are,  perhaps,  the  successors  of  the  old 

122 


WALT  WHITMAN 

astrologers,  in  that  what  they  seek  to  estab- 
lish is  some  personal  professorship  or  pre- 
dominance. The  old  occultism  and  mystery 
was  resorted  to  as  the  most  obvious  device 
for  increasing  the  personal  importance  of 
the  magician ;  and  the  chief  difference  to- 
day between  a  regular  physician  and  a  quack 
is,  that  the  quack  pretends  to  know  it  all. 

Brigham  Young  and  Joseph  Smith  were 
men  of  phenomenal  capacity,  who  actually 
invented  a  religion  and  created  a  community 
by  the  apparent  establishment  of  supernatu- 
ral and  occult  powers.  The  phrenologists, 
the  venders  of  patent  medicine,  the  Chris- 
tian Scientists,  the  single-taxers,  and  all 
who  proclaim  panaceas  and  nostrums  make 
the  same  majestic  and  pontifical  appeal  to 
human  nature.  It  is  this  mystical  power, 
this  religious  element,  which  floats  them, 
sells  the  drugs,  cures  the  sick,  and  packs 
the  meetings. 

By  temperament  and  education  Walt  Whit- 
man was  fitted  to  be  a  prophet  of  this  kind. 
He  became  a  quack  poet,  and  hampered  his 
talents  by  the  imposition  of  a  monstrous 
parade  of  rattletrap  theories  and  professions. 
If  he  had  not  been  endowed  with  a  perfectly 
marvellous  capacity,  a  wealth  of  nature  be- 
yond the  reach  and  plumb  of  his  rodomon- 
123 


WALT   WHITMAN 

tade,  he  would  have  been  ruined  from  the 
start.  As  it  is,  he  has  filled  his  work  with 
grimace  and  vulgarity.  He  writes  a  few 
lines  of  epic  directness  and  cyclopean  vigor 
and  naturalness,  and  then  obtrudes  himself 
and  his  mission. 

He  has  the  bad  taste  bred  in  the  bone  of 
all  missionaries  and  palmists,  the  sign- 
manual  of  a  true  quack.  This  bad  taste  is 
nothing  more  than  the  offensive  intrusion  of 
himself  and  his  mission  into  the  matter  in 
hand.  As  for  his  real  merits  and  his  true 
mission,  too  much  can  hardly  be  said  in  his 
favor.  The  field  of  his  experience  was  nar- 
row, and  not  in  the  least  intellectual.  It 
was  narrow  because  of  his  isolation  from 
human  life.  A  poet  like  Browning,  or 
Heine,  or  Alfred  de  Musset  deals  constantly 
with  the  problems  and  struggles  that  arise 
in  civilized  life  out  of  the  close  relation- 
ships, the  ties,  the  duties  and  desires  of  the 
human  heart.  He  explains  life  on  its  social 
side.  He  gives  us  some  more  or  less  cohe- 
rent view  of  an  infinitely  complicated  matter. 
He  is  a  guide-book  or  a  note-book,  a  highly 
trained  and  intelligent  companion. 

Walt  Whitman  has  no  interest  in  any  of 
these  things.  He  was  fortunately  so  very 
ignorant  and  untrained  that  his  mind  was 
124 


WALT  WHITMAN 

utterly  incoherent  and  unintellectual.  His 
mind  seems  to  be  submerged  and  to  have 
become  almost  a  part  of  his  body.  The  utter 
lack  of  concentration  which  resulted  from 
living  his  whole  life  in  the  open  air  has  left 
him  spontaneous  and  unaccountable.  And 
the  great  value  of  his  work  is,  that  it  rep- 
resents the  spontaneous  and  unaccountable 
functioning  of  the  mind  and  body  in  health. 

It  is  doubtful  whether  a  man  ever  enjoyed 
life  more  intensely  than  Walt  Whitman,  or 
expressed  the  physical  joy  of  mere  living 
more  completely.  He  is  robust,  all  tingling 
with  health  and  the  sensations  of  health. 
All  that  is  best  in  his  poetry  is  the  expres- 
sion of  bodily  well-being. 

A  man  who  leaves  his  office  and  gets  into 
a  canoe  on  a  Canadian  river,  sure  of  ten 
days'  release  from  the  cares  of  business  and 
housekeeping,  has  a  thrill  of  joy  such  as 
Walt  Whitman  has  here  and  there  thrown 
into  his  poetry.  One  might  say  that  to  have 
done  this  is  the  greatest  accomplishment  in 
literature.  Walt  Whitman,  in  some  of  his 
lines,  breaks  the  frame  of  poetry  and  gives 
us  life  in  the  throb. 

It  is  the  throb  of  the  whole  physical  sys- 
tem of  a  man  who  breathes  the  open  air  and 
feels  the  sky  over  him.     "When  lilacs  last 

125 


WALT  WHITMAN 

in  the  dooryard  bloomed  "  is  a  great  lyric. 
Here  is  a  whole  poem  without  a  trace  of 
self-consciousness.  It  is  little  more  than 
a  description  of  nature.  The  allusions  to 
Lincoln  and  to  the  funeral  are  but  a  word 
or  two  —  merest  suggestions  of  the  tragedy. 
But  grief,  overwhelming  grief,  is  in  every 
line  of  it,  the  grief  which  has  been  trans- 
muted into  this  sensitiveness  to  the  land- 
scape, to  the  song  of  the  thrush,  to  the 
lilac's  bloom,  and  the  sunset. 

Here  is  truth  to  life  of  the  kind  to  be 
found  in  King  Lear  or  Guy  Mannering,  in 
yEschylus  or  Burns. 

Walt  Whitman  himself  could  not  have  told 
you  why  the  poem  was  good.  Had  he  had 
any  intimation  of  the  true  reason,  he  would 
have  spoiled  the  poem.  The  recurrence  and 
antiphony  of  the  thrush,  the  lilac,  the  thought 
of  death,  the  beauty  of  nature,  are  in  a  bal- 
ance and  dream  of  natural  symmetry  such  as 
no  cunning  could  come  at,  no  conscious  art 
could  do  other  than  spoil. 

It  is  ungrateful  to  note  Whitman's  limita- 
tions, his  lack  of  human  passion,  the  false- 
ness of  many  of  his  notions  about  the 
American  people.  The  man  knew  the  world 
merely  as  an  observer,  he  was  never  a  living 
part  of  it,  and  no  mere  observer  can  under- 
126 


WALT  WHITMAN 

stand  the  life  about  him.  Even  his  work 
during  the  war  was  mainly  the  work  of  an 
observer,  and  his  poems  and  notes  upon  the 
period  are  picturesque.  As  to  his  talk  about 
comrades  and  Manhattanese  car-drivers,  and 
brass-founders  displaying  their  brawny  arms 
round  each  other's  brawny  necks,  all  this 
gush  and  sentiment  in  Whitman's  poetry  is 
false  to  life.  It  has  a  lyrical  value,  as  rep- 
resenting Whitman's  personal  feelings,  but 
no  one  else  in  the  country  was  ever  found 
who  felt  or  acted  like  this. 

In  fact,  in  all  that  concerns  the  human 
relations  Walt  Whitman  is  as  unreal  as,  let 
us  say,  William  Morris,  and  the  American 
mechanic  would  probably  prefer  Sigurd  the 
Volsung,  and  understand  it  better  than 
Whitman's  poetry. 

This  falseness  to  the  sentiment  of  the 
American  is  interwoven  with  such  won- 
derful descriptions  of  American  sights  and 
scenery,  of  ferryboats,  thoroughfares,  cata- 
racts, and  machine-shops  that  it  is  not 
strange  the  foreigners  should  have  accepted 
the  gospel. 

On  the  whole,  Whitman,  though  he  solves 
none  of  the  problems  of  life  and  throws  no 
light  on  American  civilization,  is  a  delight- 
ful  appearance,    and    a  strange  creature  to 
127 


WALT  WHITMAN 

come  out  of  our  beehive.  This  man  com- 
mitted every  unpardonable  sin  against  our 
conventions,  and  his  whole  life  was  an  out- 
rage. He  was  neither  chaste,  nor  industri- 
ous, nor  religious.  He  patiently  lived  upon 
cold  pie  and  tramped  the  earth  in  triumph. 

He  did  really  live  the  life  he  liked  to  live, 
in  defiance  of  all  men,  and  this  is  a  great 
desert,  a  most  stirring  merit.  And  he  gave, 
in  his  writings,  a  true  picture  of  himself  and 
of  that  life,  — a  picture  which  the  world  had 
never  seen  before,  and  which  it  is  probable 
the  world  will  not  soon  cease  to  wonder  at. 


128 


A    STUDY   OF    ROMEO 


A   STUDY   OF    ROMEO 

The  plays  of  Shakespeare  marshal  them- 
selves in  the  beyond.  They  stand  in  a  place 
outside  of  our  deduction.  Their  cosmos  is 
greater  than  our  philosophy.  They  are  like 
the  forces  of  nature  and  the  operations  of 
life  in  the  vivid  world  about  us.  We  may 
measure  our  intellectual  growth  by  the  new 
horizons  we  see  opening  within  them.  So 
long  as  they  continue  to  live  and  change,  to 
expand  and  deepen,  to  be  filled  with  new 
harmony  and  new  suggestion,  we  may  rest 
content;  we  are  still  growing.  At  the  mo- 
ment we  think  we  have  comprehended  them, 
at  the  moment  we  see  them  as  stationary 
things,  we  may  be  sure  something  is  wrong; 
we  are  beginning  to  petrify.  Our  fresh 
interest  in  life  has  been  arrested.  There 
is,  therefore,  danger  in  an  attempt  to  "  size 
up  "  Shakespeare.  We  cannot  help  setting 
down  as  a  coxcomb  any  man  who  has  done 
it  to  his  own  satisfaction.  He  has  pigeon- 
holed himself.  He  will  not  get  lost.  If 
131 


A    STUDY    OF    ROMEO 

you  want  him,  you  can  lay  your  hand  on 
him.  He  has  written  an  autobiography. 
He  has  "sized  up"  himself. 

In  writing  about  Shakespeare,  it  is  excus- 
able to  put  off  the  armor  of  criticism,  and 
speak  in  a  fragmentary  and  inconclusive 
manner,  lest  by  giving  way  to  conviction, 
by  encouraging  ourselves  into  positive  be- 
liefs, we  hasten  the  inevitable  and  grow  old 
before  our  time. 

Perhaps  some  such  apology  is  needed  to 
introduce  the  observations  on  the  character 
of  Romeo  which  are  here  thrown  together, 
and  the  remarks  about  the  play  itself,  the 
acting,  and  the  text. 

It  is  believed  by  some  scholars  that  in  the 
second  quarto  edition  of  Romeo  and  Juliet, 
published  in  1599,  Shakespeare's  revising 
hand  can  be  seen,  and  that  the  differences 
between  the  first  and  second  editions  show 
the  amendments,  additions,  and  corrections 
with  which  Shakespeare  saw  fit  to  embellish 
his  work  in  preparing  it  for  the  press.  If 
this  were  actually  the  case;  if  we  could  lay 
the  two  texts  on  the  table  before  us,  con- 
vinced that  one  of  them  was  Shakespeare's 
draft  or  acting  copy,  and  the  other  Shake- 
speare's finished  work;  and  if,  by  comparing 
132 


A    STUDY    OF    ROMEO 

the  two;  we  could  enter  into  the  workshop 
and  forge  of  his  mind,  —  it  would  seem  as  if 
we  had  at  last  found  an  avenue  of  approach 
towards  this  great  personality,  this  intellect 
the  most  powerful  that  has  ever  illumined 
human  life.  No  other  literary  inquiry  could 
compare  in  interest  with  such  a  study  as 
this;  for  the  relation  which  Shakespeare 
himself  bore  to  the  plays  he  created  is  one 
of  the  mysteries  and  blank  places  in  his- 
tory, a  gap  that  staggers  the  mind  and  which 
imagination  cannot  overleap. 

The  student  who  examines  both  texts  will 
be  apt  to  conclude  that  the  second  is  by  no 
means  a  revised  edition  of  the  first,  but  that 
(according  to  another  theory)  the  first  is  a 
pirated  edition  of  the  play,  stolen  by  the 
printer,  and  probably  obtained  by  means  of 
a  reporter  who  took  down  the  lines  as  they 
were  spoken  on  the  stage.  The  stage  direc- 
tions in  the  first  edition  are  not  properly  the 
stage  directions  of  a  dramatist  as  to  what 
should  be  done  on  the  stage,  but  seem  rather 
the  records  of  an  eye-witness  as  to  what  he 
saw  happen  on  the  stage.  The  mistakes  of 
the  reporter  (or  the  perversions  of  the  actors) 
as  seen  in  the  first  edition  generally  injure 
the  play;  and  it  was  from  this  circumstance 
—  the  frequency  of  blotches  in  the  first  edi- 
*33 


A    STUDY    OF    ROMEO 

tion  —  that  the  idea  gained  currency  that  the 
second  edition  was  an  example  of  Shake- 
speare's never-failing  tact  in  bettering  his 
own  lines. 

Perhaps,  after  all,  it  would  little  advance 
our  understanding  of  the  plays,  or  solve  the 
essential  puzzle,  —that  they  actually  had  an 
author,  —  if  we  could  follow  every  stroke  of 
his  revising  pen.  We  should  observe,  no 
doubt,  refinement  of  characterization,  changes 
of  stage  effect,  the  addition  of  flourishes  and 
beauties;  but  their  origin  and  true  meaning, 
the  secret  of  their  life,  would  be  as  safe  as 
it  is  at  present,  as  securely  lost  in  the  midst 
of  all  this  demonstration  as  the  manuscripts 
themselves  were  in  the  destruction  of  the 
Globe  Theatre. 

If  we  must  then  abandon  the  hope  of  see- 
ing Shakespeare  in  his  workshop,  we  may, 
nevertheless,  obtain  from  the  pirated  text 
some  notion  of  the  manner  in  which  Shake- 
speare was  staged  in  his  own  day,  and  of  how 
he  fared  at  the  hands  of  the  early  actors. 
Romeo  and  Juliet  is  an  exceptionally  diffi- 
cult play  to  act,  and  the  difficulties  seem  to 
have  been  about  the  same  in  Shakespeare's 
time  as  they  are  to-day.  They  are,  in  fact, 
inherent  in  the  structure  of  the  work  itself. 

As  artists  advance  in  life,  they  develop, 
i34 


A    STUDY    OF    ROMEO 

by  growing  familiar  with  the  conditions  of 
their  art,  the  power  of  concealing  its  limita- 
tions, —  a  faculty  in  which  even  the  greatest 
artists  are  often  deficient  in  their  early  years. 
There  is  an  anecdote  of  Schumann  which 
somewhat  crudely  illustrates  this.  It  is  said 
that  in  one  of  his  early  symphonies  he  intro- 
duced a  passage  leading  up  to  a  climax,  at 
which  the  horns  were  to  take  up  the  aria 
in  triumph.  At  the  rehearsal,  when  the 
moment  came  for  the  horns  to  trumpet  forth 
their  message  of  victory,  there  was  heard  a 
sort  of  smothered  braying  which  made  every- 
body laugh.  The  composer  had  arranged  his 
climax  so  that  it  fell  upon  a  note  which  the 
horns  could  not  sound  except  with  closed 
stops.  The  passage  had  to  be  rewritten. 
The  young  painter  is  frequently  found  strug- 
gling with  subjects,  with  effects  of  light, 
which  are  almost  impossible  to  render,  and 
which  perhaps  an  older  man  would  not  at- 
tempt. It  is  not  surprising  to  find  among 
the  early  works  of  Shakespeare  that  some  of 
the  characters,  however  true  to  life, — nay, 
because  true  to  life,  — are  almost  impossible 
to  be  represented  on  the  stage.  Certainly 
Romeo  presents  us  with  a  character  of  the 
kind. 

Shakespeare's  knowledge  of  human  nature 
i3S 


A    STUDY    OF    ROMEO 

seems  to  have  antedated  his  knowledge  of 
the  stage.  In  imagining  the  character  of 
Romeo,  a  character  to  fit  the  plot  of  the  old 
story,  he  took  little  thought  for  his  actors. 
In  conjuring  up  the  probabilities  which  would 
lead  a  man  into  such  a  course  of  conduct  as 
Romeo's,  Shakespeare  had  in  his  mind  the 
probabilities  and  facts  in  real  life  rather  than 
the  probabilities  demanded  by  the  stage. 

Romeo  must  be  a  man  almost  wholly  made 
up  of  emotion,  a  creature  very  young,  a  lyric 
poet  in  the  intensity  of  his  sensations,  a 
child  in  his  helplessness  beneath  the  ever- 
varying  currents  and  whirlpools  of  his  feel- 
ing. He  lives  in  a  walking  and  frenzied 
dream,  comes  in  contact  with  real  life  only 
to  injure  himself  and  others,  and  finally 
drives  with  the  collected  energy  of  his  being 
into  voluntary  shipwreck  upon  the  rocks  of 
the  world. 

This  man  must  fall  in  love  at  first  sight. 
He  must  marry  clandestinely.  He  must  be 
banished  for  having  taken  part  in  a  street 
fight,  and  must  return  to  slay  himself  upon 
the  tomb  of  his  beloved. 

Shakespeare,  with  his  passion  for  realism, 

devotes  several  scenes  at  the  opening  of  the 

play  to  the  explanation  of  Romeo's  state  of 

mind.      He  will  give  us  a  rationalistic  ac- 

136 


A    STUDY    OF    ROMEO 

count  of  love  at  first  sight  by  bringing  on 
this  young  poet  in  a  blind  chaos  of  emotion 
owing  to  his  rejection  by  a  woman  not  other- 
wise connected  with  the  story.  It  is  per- 
fectly true  that  this  is  the  best  and  perhaps 
the  only  explanation  of  love  at  first  sight. 
The  effect  upon  Romeo's  very  boyish,  unreal, 
and  almost  unpleasant  lovesickness  of  the 
rejection  (for  which  we  must  always  respect 
Rosaline)  is  to  throw  him,  and  all  the  un- 
stable elements  of  which  he  is  made,  into  a 
giddy  whirl,  which,  after  a  day  or  two,  it 
will  require  only  the  glance  of  a  pair  of  eyes 
to  precipitate  into  the  very  elixir  of  true 
love. 

All  this  is  true,  but  no  audience  cares 
about  the  episode  or  requires  the  explana- 
tion. Indeed,  it  jars  upon  the  sentimental 
notion  of  many  persons  to  this  day,  and  in 
many  stage  versions  it  is  avoided. 

These  preparatory  scenes  bring  out  in  a 
most  subtle  way  the  egoism  at  the  basis  of 
Romeo's  character,  —  the  same  lyrical  egoism 
that  is  in  all  his  language  and  in  all  his 
conduct.  |  When  we  first  see  Romeo,  he  is 
already  in  an  uneasy  dream.  He  is  wander- 
ing, aloof  from  his  friends  and  absorbed  in 
himself.  On  meeting  Juliet  he  passes  from 
his  first  dream  into  a  second  dream.  On 
J37 


A    STUDY    OF    ROMEO 

learning  of  the  death  of  Juliet  he  passes  into 
still  a  third  and  quite  different  dream,  — or 
stage  of  dream,  —  a  stage  in  which  action  is 
necessary,  and  in  which  he  displays  the  cal- 
culating intellect  of  a  maniac.  The  mental 
abstraction  of  Romeo  continues  even  after 
he  has  met  Juliet.  In  Capulet's  garden, 
despite  the  directness  of  Juliet,  he  is  still 
in  his  reveries.  The  sacred  wonder  of  the 
hour  turns  all  his  thoughts,  not  into  love, 
but  into  poetry.  Juliet's  anxieties  are  prac- 
tical. She  asks  him  about  his  safety,  how 
he  came  there,  how  he  expects  to  escape. 
He  answers  in  madrigals.  His  musings  are 
almost  impersonal.  The  power  of  the  moon- 
light is  over  him,  and  the  power  of  the  scene, 
of  which  Juliet  is  only  a  part. 

"  With  love's  light  wings  did  I  o'er-perch  these  walls  ; 
For  ston)r  limits  cannot  hold  love  out, 
And  what  love  can  do  that  dares  love  attempt; 
Therefore  thy  kinsmen  are  no  let  to  me. 

Lady,  by  yonder  blessed  moon  I  swear 

That  tips  with  silver  all  these  fruit-tree  tops  — 

It  is  my  soul  that  calls  upon  my  name : 

How  silver-sweet  sound  lovers'  tongues  by  night, 

Like  softest  music  to  attending  ears." 

These  reflections  are  almost  "  asides. "    They 

ought   hardly   to    be    spoken    aloud.     They 

138 


A    STUDY    OF    ROMEO 

denote  that  Romeo  is  still  in  his  trance. 
They  have,  however,  another  and  unfortu- 
nate influence:  they  retard  the  action  of 
the  play.  As  we  read  the  play  to  our- 
selves, this  accompaniment  of  lyrical  feel- 
ing on  Romeo's  part  does  not  interfere 
with  our  enjoyment.  It  seems  to  accentu- 
ate the  more  direct  and  human  strain  of 
Juliet's  love. 

But  on  the  stage  the  actor  who  plays 
Romeo  requires  the  very  highest  powers. 
While  speaking  at  a  distance  from  Juliet, 
and  in  a  constrained  position,  he  must  by 
his  voice  and  gestures  convey  these  subtlest 
shades  of  feeling,  throw  these  garlands  of 
verse  into  his  talk  without  interrupting  its 
naturalness,  give  all  the  "asides"  in  such  a 
manner  that  the  audience  feels  they  are  in 
place,  even  as  the  reader  does.  It  is  no 
wonder  that  the  role  of  Romeo  is  one  of 
the  most  difficult  in  all  Shakespeare.  The 
demands  made  upon  the  stage  are  almost 
more  than  the  stage  can  meet.  The  truth  to 
nature  is  of  a  kind  that  the  stage  is  almost 
powerless  to  render. 

The  character  of  Romeo  cannot  hope  to 
be   popular.     Such  pure   passion,    such  un- 
reasonable giving  way,  is  not  easily  forgiven 
in  a  man.     He  must  roll  on  the  floor  and 
i39 


A    STUDY    OF    ROMEO 

blubber  and  kick.  There  is  no  getting  away 
from  this.  He  is  not  Romeo  unless  he  cries 
like  a  baby  or  a  Greek  hero.  This  is  the 
penalty  for  being  a  lyric  poet.  Had  he 
used  his  mind  more  upon  the  problems  of 
his  love,  and  less  upon  its  celebration  in 
petalled  phrases,  his  mind  would  not  have 
deserted  him  so  lamentably  in  the  hour  of 
his  need.  In  fact,  throughout  the  play, 
Romeo,  by  the  exigencies  of  the  plot,  is  in 
fair  danger  of  becoming  contemptible.  For 
one  instant  only  does  he  rise  into  respecta- 
bility, —  at  the  moment  of  his  quarrel  with 
Tybalt.  At  this  crisis  he  is  stung  into  life 
by  the  death  of  Mercutio,  and  acts  like  a 
man.  The  ranting  manner  in  which  it  is 
customary  to  give  Romeo's  words  in  this 
passage  of  the  play  shows  how  far  most  actors 
are  from  understanding  the  true  purport  of 
the  lines;  how  far  from  realizing  that  these 
few  lines  are  the  only  opportunity  the  actor 
has  of  establishing  the  character  of  Romeo 
as  a  gentleman,  a  man  of  sense  and  courage, 
a  formidable  fellow,  not  unfit  to  be  the  hero 
of  a  play :  — 

"  Alive,  in  triumph  !  and  Mercutio  slain! 
Away  to  heaven,  respective  lenity, 
And  fire-ey'd  fury  be  my  conduct  now  ! 
Now,  Tybalt,  take  the  '  villain  '  back  again 
140 


A    STUDY    OF    ROMEO 

That  late  thou  gav'st  me  ;  —  for  Mercutio's  soul 
Is  but  a  little  way  above  our  heads, 
Staying  for  thine  to  keep  him  company  : 
Either  thou,  or  I,  or  both,  must  go  with  him." 

The  first  three  lines  are  spoken  by  Romeo 
to  himself.  They  are  a  reflection,  not  a 
declamation,  —  a  reflection  upon  which  he 
instantly  acts.  He  assumes  the  calmness 
of  a  man  of  his  rank  who  is  about  to  fight. 
More  than  this,  Romeo,  the  man  of  words 
and  moods,  when  once  roused,  as  we  shall 
see  later,  in  a  worser  cause,  —  when  once 
pledged  to  action,  —  Romeo  shines  with  a 
sort  of  fatalistic  spiritual  power.  He  is 
now  visibly  dedicated  to  this  quarrel.  We 
feel  sure  that  he  will  kill  Tybalt  in  the  en- 
counter. The  appeal  to  the  supernatural  is 
in  his  very  gesture.  The  audience  —  nay, 
Tybalt  himself  —  gazes  with  awe  on  this 
sudden  apparition  of  Romeo  as  a  man  of 
action. 

This  highly  satisfactory  conduct  is  soon 
swept  away  by  his  behavior  on  hearing  the 
news  of  his  banishment.  The  boy  seems  to 
be  without  much  stamina,  after  all.  He  is 
a  pitiable  object,  and  does  not  deserve  the 
love  of  fair  lady. 

At  Mantua  the  tide  of  his  feelings  has 
turned  again,  and  by  one  of  those  natural 
141 


A    STUDY    OF    ROMEO 

reactions  which  he  himself  takes  note  of  he 
wakes  up  unaccountably  happy,  "and  all  this 
day  an  unaccustom'd  spirit  lifts  him  above 
the  ground  with  cheerful  thoughts."  It  is 
the  lightning  before  the  thunderbolt. 

"  Her  body  sleeps  to  Capel's  monument, 
And  her  immortal  part  with  angels  lives. 
I  saw  her  laid  low  in  her  kindred's  vault, 
And  presently  took  post  to  tell  it  you." 

Balthasar  makes  no  attempt  to  break  the 
news  gently.  The  blow  descends  on  Romeo 
when  he  least  expects  it.  He  is  not  spared. 
The  conduct  of  Romeo  on  hearing  of  Juliet's 
death  is  so  close  to  nature  as  to  be  nature 
itself,  yet  it  happens  to  be  conduct  almost 
impossible  to  be  given  on  the  stage.  He 
does  nothing.  He  is  stunned.  He  collapses. 
For  fully  five  minutes  he  does  not  speak, 
and  yet  in  these  five  minutes  he  must  show 
to  the  audience  that  his  nature  has  been 
shaken  to  its  foundations.  The  delirium  of 
miraculously  beautiful  poetry  is  broken. 
His  words  are  gone.  His  emotion  is  para- 
lyzed, but  his  mind  is  alert.  He  seems  sud- 
denly to  be  grown  up,  —  a  man,  and  not  a 
boy,  —  and  a  man  of  action.  "  Is  it  even 
so  ?  "  is  all  he  says.  He  orders  post-horses, 
ink  and  paper,  in  a  few  rapid  sentences ;  it 
142 


A    STUDY    OF    ROMEO 

is  evident  that  before  speaking  at  all  he  has 
determined  what  he  will  do,  and  from  now 
on  to  the  end  of  the  play  Romeo  is  different 
from  his  old  self,  for  a  new  Romeo  has  ap- 
peared. He  is  in  a  state  of  intense  and 
calm  exultation.  All  his  fluctuating  emo- 
tions have  been  stilled  or  stunned.  He 
gives  his  orders  in  staccato.  We  feel  that 
he  knows  what  he  is  going  to  do,  and  will 
certainly  accomplish  it.  Meanwhile  his 
mind  is  dominant.  It  is  preternaturally  ac- 
tive. His  "asides,"  which  before  were  lyr- 
ical, now  become  the  comments  of  an  acute 
intellect.  His  vivid  and  microscopic  recol- 
lection of  the  apothecary  shop,  his  philo- 
sophical bantering  with  the  apothecary,  his 
sudden  violence  to  Balthasar  at  the  entrance 
to  the  tomb,  and  his  as  sudden  friendliness, 
his  words  and  conflict  with  Paris,  whom  he 
kills  incidentally,  absent-mindedly,  and,  as 
it  were,  with  his  left  hand,  without  malice 
and  without  remorse,  —  all  these  things  show 
an  intellect  working  at  high  pressure,  while 
the  spirit  of  the  man  is  absorbed  in  another 
and  more  important  matter. 

There  is  a  certain  state  of  mind  in  which 

the  will  to  do  is  so  soon  followed  by  the  act 

itself  that  one  may  say  the  act  is  automatic. 

The  thought  has  already  begun  to  be  exe- 

143 


A    STUDY    OF    ROMEO 

cuted  even  while  it  is  being  formed.  This 
occurs  especially  where  the  intent  is  to  do 
some  horrid  deed  which  requires  preparation, 
firmness  of  purpose,  ingenuity,  and,  above 
all,  external  calmness. 

"  Between  the  acting  of  a  dreadful  thing 
And  the  first  motion,  all  the  interim  is 
Like  a  phantasma,  or  a  hideous  dream ; 
The  genius  and  the  mortal  instruments 
Are  then  in  council  ;  and  the  state  of  man, 
Like  to  a  little  kingdom,  suffers  then 
The  nature  of  an  insurrection." 

This  is  the  phase  through  which  Romeo  is 
passing  on  the  way  from  Mantua  to  Verona. 
His  own  words  give  us  a  picture  of  him 
during  that  ride:  — 

"  What  said  my  man  when  my  betossed  soul 
Did  not  attend  him  as  we  rode  ?  " 

He  has  come  like  an  arrow,  his  mind  closed 
to  the  external  world,  himself  in  the  blind 
clutch  of  his  own  deadly  purpose,  driving  on 
towards  its  fulfilment.  Only  at  the  end, 
when  he  stands  before  the  bier  of  Juliet, 
sure  of  his  will,  beyond  the  reach  of  hin- 
drance, alone  for  the  first  time,  — only  then 
is  his  spirit  released  in  floods  of  eloquence; 
then  does  his  triumphant  purpose  break  into 
speech,  and  his  words  soar  up  like  the  flames 
144 


A    STUDY    OF    ROMEO 

of  a  great  bonfire  of  precious  incense  stream- 
ing upward  in  exultation  and  in  happiness. 

The  whole  course  of  these  last  scenes  of 
Romeo's  life,  which  are  scarcely  longer  than 
this  description  of  them,  is  in  the  highest 
degree  naturalistic;  but  the  scenes  are  in 
the  nature  of  things  so  difficult  to  present 
on  the  stage  as  to  be  fairly  impossible.  The 
very  long,  the  very  minute  description  of 
the  apothecary's  shop,  given  by  a  man  whose 
heart  has  stopped  beating,  but  whose  mind 
is  at  work  more  actively  and  more  accurately 
than  it  has  ever  worked  before,  is  a  thing 
highly  sane  as  to  its  words.  It  must  be  done 
quietly,  rapidly,  and  yet  the  impression  must 
be  created,  which  is  created  upon  Balthasar, 
that  Romeo  is  not  in  his  right  mind.  A 
friend  seeing  him  would  cross  the  street  to 
ask  what  was  the  matter. 

The  whole  character  of  Romeo,  from  the 
beginning,  has  been  imagined  with  reference 
to  this  self-destroying  consummation.  From 
his  first  speech  we  might  have  suspected  that 
something  destructive  would  come  out  of  this 
man. 

There  is  a  type  of  highly  organized  being, 
not  well  fitted  for  this  world,  whose  practi- 
cal activities  are  drowned  in  a  sea  of  feeling. 
Egoists  by  their  constitution,   they  become 
10  ,45 


A    STUDY    OF    ROMEO 

dangerous  beings  when  vexed,  cornered,  or 
thwarted  by  society.  Their  fine  energies 
have  had  no  training  in  the  painful  con- 
structive processes  of  civilization.  Their 
first  instincts,  when  goaded  into  activity, 
are  instincts  of  destruction.  They  know  no 
compromise.  If  they  are  not  to  have  all, 
then  no  one  shall  possess  anything.  Romeo 
is  not  suffering  in  this  final  scene.  He  is 
experiencing  the  greatest  pleasure  of  his  life. 
He  glories  in  his  deed.  It  satisfies  his  soul. 
It  gives  him  supreme  spiritual  activity.  The 
deed  brings  widespread  desolation,  but  to  this 
he  is  indifferent,  for  it  means  the  destruction 
of  the  prison  against  which  his  desires  have 
always  beaten  their  wings,  the  destruction  of 
a  material  and  social  universe  from  which  he 
has  always  longed  to  be  free. 

"  O,  here 
Will  I  set  up  my  everlasting  rest, 
And  shake  the  yoke  of  inauspicious  stars 
From  this  world-wearied  flesh." 

How  much  of  all  this  psychology  may  we 
suppose  was  rendered  apparent  to  the  motley 
collection  of  excitable  people  who  flocked  to 
see  the  play  —  which  appears  to  have  been  a 
popular  one  —  in  the  years  1591-97?  Prob- 
ably as  much  as  may  be  gathered  by  an  audi- 
145 


A    STUDY    OF    ROMEO 

ence  to-day  from  a  tolerable  representation 
of  the  piece.  The  subtler  truths  of  Shake- 
speare have  always  been  lost  upon  the  stage. 
In  turning  over  the  first  quarto  of  Romeo 
and  Juliet,  we  may  see  that  many  such  mat- 
ters were  pruned  ruggedly  off  by  the  actors. 
The  early  audiences,  like  the  popular  audi- 
ences of  to-day,  doubtless  regarded  action 
as  the  first  merit  of  a  play,  and  the  stage 
managers  must  have  understood  this.  It  is 
noticeable  that,  in  the  authentic  text,  the 
street  fight  with  which  this  play  opens  is  a 
carefully-worked-up  scene,  which  comes  to 
a  climax  in  the  entry  of  the  prince.  The 
reporter  gives  a  few  words  only  to  a  descrip- 
tion of  the  scene.  No  doubt,  in  Shake- 
speare's time,  the  characters  spoke  very  rapidly 
or  all  at  once.  It  is  impossible  that  the 
longer  plays,  like  King  Lear,  should  have 
been  finished  in  an  evening,  unless  the 
scenes  moved  with  a  hurry  of  life  very 
different  from  the  declamatory  leisure  with 
which  our  actors  move  from  scene  to  scene. 
To  make  plain  the  course  of  the  story  was 
evidently  the  chief  aim  of  the  stage  man- 
agers. The  choruses  are  finger-posts.  It  is 
true  that  the  choruses  in  Shakespeare  are 
generally  so  overloaded  with  curious  orna- 
ment as  to  be  incomprehensible  except  as 
M7 


A    STUDY    OF    ROMEO 

explanations  of  things  already  understood. 
The  prologue  to  Romeo  and  Juliet  is  a  riddle 
to  which  the  play  is  the  answer.  One  might 
at  first  suppose  that  the  need  of  such  finger- 
posts betrayed  a  dull  audience,  but  no  dull 
person  was  ever  enlightened  by  Shakespeare's 
choruses.  They  play  variations  on  the  theme. 
They  instruct  only  the  instructed. 

If  interest  in  the  course  of  the  story  be  the 
first  excitement  to  the  theatre-goer,  interest 
in  seeing  a  picture  of  contemporary  manners 
is  probably  the  second.  Our  chief  loss  in 
reading  Shakespeare  is  the  loss  of  the  society 
he  depicts,  and  which  we  know  only  through 
him.  In  every  line  and  scene  there  must 
be  meanings  which  have  vanished  forever 
with  the  conditions  on  which  they  comment. 
A  character  on  the  stage  has  need,  at  the 
feeblest,  of  only  just  so  much  vitality  as  will 
remind  us  of  something  we  know  in  real  life. 
The  types  of  Shakespeare  which  have  been 
found  substantial  enough  to  survive  the  loss 
of  their  originals  must  have  had  an  interest 
for  the  first  audiences,  both  in  nature  and  in 
intensity,  very  different  from  their  interest  to 
us.  The  high  life  depicted  by  Shakespeare 
has  disappeared.  No  one  of  us  has  ever 
known  a  Mercutio.  Fortunately,  the  types 
of  society  seem  to  change  less  in  the  lower 
148 


A    STUDY    OF    ROMEO 

orders  than  in  the  upper  classes.  England 
swarms  with  old  women  like  Juliet's  nurse; 
and  as  to  these  characters  in  Shakespeare 
whose  originals  still  survive,  and  as  to  them 
only,  we  may  feel  that  we  are  near  the 
Elizabethans. 

We  should  undoubtedly  suffer  some  disen- 
chantment by  coming  in  contact  with  these 
coarse  and  violent  people.  How  much  do 
the  pictures  of  contemporary  England  given 
us  by  the  novelists  stand  in  need  of  correc- 
tion by  a  visit  to  the  land !  How  different 
is  the  thing  from  the  abstract !  Or,  to  put 
the  same  thought  in  a  more  obvious  light, 
how  fantastic  are  the  ideas  of  the  Germans 
about  Shakespeare !  How  Germanized  does 
he  come  forth  from  their  libraries  and  from 
their  green-rooms! 

We  in  America,  with  our  formal  manners, 
our  bloodless  complexions,  our  perpetual 
decorum  and  self-suppression,  are  about  as 
much  in  sympathy  with  the  real  element  of 
Shakespeare's  plays  as  a  Baptist  parson  is 
with  a  fox-hunt.  Our  blood  is  stirred  by 
the  narration,  but  our  constitution  could 
never  stand  the  reality.  As  we  read  we 
translate  all  things  into  the  dialect  of  our 
province;  or  if  we  must  mouth,  let  us  say 
that  we  translate  the  dialect  of  the  English 
H9 


A    STUDY    OF    ROMEO 

province  into  the  language  of  our  empire; 
but  we  still  translate.  Mercutio,  on  inspec- 
tion, would  turn  out  to  be  not  a  gentleman, 
—  and  indeed  he  is  not;  Juliet,  to  be  a  most 
extraordinary  young  person ;  Tybalt,  a  brute 
and  ruffian,  a  type  from  the  plantation;  and 
the  only  man  with  whom  we  should  feel  at 
all  at  ease  would  be  the  County  Paris,  in 
whom  we  should  all  recognize  a  perfectly 
bred  man.  "  What  a  man ! "  we  should  cry. 
"  Why,  he 's  a  man  of  wax !  " 


'5° 


MICHAEL  ANGELO'S    SONNETS 


MICHAEL  ANGELO'S    SONNETS 

Michael  Angelo  is  revealed  by  his  son- 
nets. He  wears  the  triple  crown  of  painter, 
poet,  and  sculptor,  and  his  genius  was  wor- 
shipped with  a  kind  of  awe  even  while  he 
lived,  yet  we  know  the  man  best  through 
these  little  pieces  of  himself  which  he  broke 
off  and  gave  to  his  friends.  The  fragments 
vibrated  with  the  life  of  the  man,  and 
were  recognized  as  wonderful  things.  Even 
in  his  lifetime  they  were  treasured  and  col- 
lected in  manuscript,  and  at  a  later  day  they 
were  seized  upon  by  the  world  at  large. 

The  first  published  edition  of  the  son- 
nets was  prepared  for  the  press  many 
years  after  the  death  of  the  author  by  his 
grandnephew,  who  edited  them  to  suit  the 
taste  of  the  seventeenth  century.  The  ex- 
tent and  atrocity  of  his  emendations  can  be 
realized  by  a  comparison  of  texts.  But  the 
sonnets  survived  the  improvements,  and  even 
made  headway  under  them ;  and  when,  in 
1863,  Guasti  gave  the  original  readings  to 
iS3 


MICHAEL  ANGELO'S  SONNETS 

the  public,  the  world  was  prepared  for  them. 
The  bibliography  of  editions  and  transla- 
tions which  Guasti  gives  is  enough  to  show 
the  popularity  of  the  sonnets,  their  universal 
character,  their  international  currency. 

There  are  upward  of  one  hundred  sonnets 
in  every  stage  of  perfection,  and  they  have 
given  rise  not  only  to  a  literature  of  transla- 
tions, but  to  a  literature  of  comment.  Some 
years  ago  Mrs.  Ednah  Cheney  published  a 
selection  of  the  sonnets,  giving  the  Italian 
text,  together  with  English  translations  by 
various  hands.  This  little  volume  has  earned 
the  gratitude  of  many  to  whom  it  made  known 
the  sonnets.  The  Italians  themselves  have 
gone  on  printing  the  corrupt  text  in  con- 
tempt of  Guasti 's  labors.  But  it  has  not 
been  left  to  the  Italians  to  protect  the  treas- 
ures of  their  land.  The  barbarians  have 
been  the  devoutest  worshippers  at  all  times. 
The  last  tribute  has  come  from  Mr..  John 
Addington  Symonds,  who  has  done  the  son- 
nets into  the  English  of  the  pre-Raphaelites, 
and  done  them,  on  the  whole,  amazingly 
well.  His  translations  of  the  more  graceful 
sonnets  are  facile,  apt,  and  charming,  and  rise 
at  times  into  beauty.  He  has,  however,  in- 
sisted on  polishing  the  rugged  ones.  More- 
over, being  deficient  in  reverence,  Mr. 
i54 


MICHAEL  ANGELO'S  SONNETS 

Symonds  fails  to  convey  reverence.  Never- 
theless, to  have  boldly  planned  and  carried 
out  the  task  of  translating  them  all  was  an 
undertaking  of  so  much  courage,  and  has 
been  done  with  so  much  success,  that  every 
rival  must  give  in  his  admiration. 

The  poems  are  exceedingly  various,  some 
being  rough  and  some  elegant,  some  obvious 
and  some  obscure,  some  humorous,  some 
religious.  Yet  they  have  this  in  common, 
that  each  seems  to  be  the  bearer  of  some 
deep  harmony,  whose  vibrations  we  feel  and 
whose  truth  we  recognize.  From  the  very 
beginning  they  seem  to  have  had  a  provoca- 
tive and  stimulating  effect  upon  others;  ever 
since  they  were  written,  cultivated  people 
have  been  writing  essays  about  them.  One 
of  them  has  been  the  subject  of  repeated  aca- 
demical disquisition.  They  absorb  and  reflect 
the  spirit  of  the  times;  they  appeal  to  and 
express  the  individual;  they  have  done  this 
through  three  centuries  and  throughout  who 
shall  say  how  many  different  educational 
conditions.  Place  them  in  what  light  you 
will,  they  gleam  with  new  meanings.  This 
is  their  quality.  It  is  hard  to  say  whence 
the  vitality  comes.  They  have  often  a  bril- 
liancy that  springs  from  the  juxtaposition 
of  two  thoughts,  — a  brilliancy  like  that  pro- 
x55 


MICHAEL  ANGELO'S  SONNETS 

duced  by  unblended  colors  roughly  but  well 
laid  on.  They  have,  as  it  were,  an  organic 
force  which  nothing  can  render.  The  best 
of  them  have  the  reflective  power  which  gives 
back  light  from  the  mind  of  the  reader.  The 
profounder  ones  appear  to  change  and  glow 
under  contemplation ;  they  re-echo  syllables 
from  forgotten  voices ;  they  suggest  unfathom- 
able depths  of  meaning.  These  sonnets  are 
protean  in  character ;  they  represent  different 
things  to  different  people,  —  religion  to  one, 
love  to  another,  philosophy  to  a  third. 

It  is  easy  to  guess  what  must  be  the  fate 
of  such  poems  in  translation.  The  transla- 
tor inevitably  puts  more  of  himself  than  of 
Michael  Angelo  into  his  version.  Even  the 
first  Italian  editor  could  not  let  them  alone. 
He  felt  he  must  dose  them  with  elegance. 
This  itching  to  amend  the  sonnets  results 
largely  from  the  obscurity  of  the  text.  A 
translator  is  required  to  be,  above  all  things, 
comprehensible,  and,  therefore,  he  must 
interpret,  he  must  paraphrase.  He  is  not 
at  liberty  to  retain  the  equivocal  sugges- 
tiveness  of  the  original.  The  language  of  a 
translation  must  be  chastened,  or,  at  least, 
grammatical,  and  Michael  Angelo's  verse  is 
very  often  neither  the  one  nor  the  other. 

The  selections  which  follow  are  not  given 
156 


MICHAEL  ANGELO'S  SONNETS 

as  representative  of  the  different  styles  in 
the  original.  They  have  been  chosen  from 
among  those  sonnets  which  seemed  most 
capable  of  being  rendered  into  English. 

The  essential  nature  of  the  sonnet  is  re- 
plete with  difficulty,  and  special  embarrass- 
ments are  encountered  in  the  Italian  sonnet. 
The  Italian  sonnet  is,  both  in  its  form  and 
spirit,  a  thing  so  foreign  to  the  English  idea 
of  what  poetry  should  be,  that  no  cultivation 
can  ever  domesticate  it  into  the  tongue.  The 
seeds  of  flowers  from  the  Alps  may  be 
planted  in  our  gardens,  but  a  new  kind  of 
flower  will  come  up;  and  this  is  what  has 
happened  over  and  over  again  to  the  skilled 
gardeners  of  English  literature  in  their 
struggles  with  the  Italian  sonnet.  In  Italy, 
for  six  hundred  years,  the  sonnet  has  been 
the  authorized  form  for  a  disconnected  re- 
mark of  any  kind.  Its  chief  aim  is  not  so 
much  to  express  a  feeling  as  an  idea  —  a 
witticism  —  a  conceit  —  a  shrewd  saying  —  a 
clever  analogy — a  graceful  simile  —  a  beau- 
tiful thought.  Moreover,  it  is  not  primarily 
intended  for  the  public;  it  has  a  social  rather 
than  a  literary  function. 

The  English  with  their  lyrical  genius  have 
impressed  the  form,  as  they  have  impressed 
every  other  form,  into  lyrical   service,   and 
i57 


MICHAEL  ANGELO'S  SONNETS 

with  some  success,  it  must  be  admitted.  But 
the  Italian  sonnet  is  not  lyrical.  It  is  con- 
versational and  intellectual,  and  many  things 
which  English  instinct  declares  poetry  ought 
not  to  be.  We  feel  throughout  the  poetry 
of  the  Latin  races  a  certain  domination  of 
the  intelligence  which  is  foreign  to  our  own 
poetry.  But  in  the  sonnet  form  at  least  we 
may  sympathize  with  this  domination.  Let 
us  read  the  Italian  sonnets,  then,  as  if  they 
were  prose;  let  us  seek  first  the  thought  and 
hold  to  that,  and  leave  the  eloquence  to  take 
care  of  itself.  It  is  the  thought,  after  all, 
which  Michael  Angelo  himself  cared  about. 
He  is  willing  to  sacrifice  elegance,  to  trun- 
cate words,  to  wreck  rhyme,  prosody,  and 
grammar,  if  he  can  only  hurl  through  the 
verse  these  thoughts  which  were  his  con- 
victions. 

The  pi  atonic  ideas  about  life  and  love 
and  art,  which  lie  at  the  bottom  of  most  of 
these  sonnets,  are  familiar  to  us  all.  They 
have  been  the  reigning  commonplace  ideas 
of  educated  people  for  the  last  two  thousand 
years.  But  in  these  sonnets  they  are  touched 
with  new  power;  they  become  exalted  into 
mystical  importance.  We  feel  almost  as  if 
it  were  Plato  himself  that  is  talking,  and  the 
interest  is  not  lessened  when  we  remember 
158 


MICHAEL    ANGELO'S    SONNETS 

that  it  is  Michael  Angclo.  It  is  necessary 
to  touch  on  this  element  in  the  sonnets,  for 
it  exists  in  them ;  and  because  while  some 
will  feel  chiefly  the  fiery  soul  of  the  man, 
others  will  be  most  struck  by  his  great 
speculative  intellect. 

It  is  certain  that  the  sonnets  date  from 
various  times  in  Michael  Angelo's  life;  and, 
except  in  a  few  cases,  it  must  be  left  to  the 
instinct  of  the  reader  to  place  them.  Those 
which  were  called  forth  by  the  poet's  friend- 
ship for  Vittoria  Colonna  were  undoubtedly 
written  towards  the  close  of  his  life.  While 
he  seems  to  have  known  Vittoria  Colonna 
and  to  have  been  greatly  attached  to  her  for 
many  years,  it  is  certain  that  in  his  old  age 
he  fell  in  love  with  her.  The  library  of 
romance  that  has  been  written  about  this 
attachment  has  added  nothing  to  Condivi's 
simple  words:  — 

"  He  greatly  loved  the  Marchesana  of 
Pescara,  with  whose  divine  spirit  he  fell  in 
love,  and  was  in  return  passionately  beloved 
of  her;  and  he  still  keeps  many  of  her  let- 
ters, which  are  full  of  most  honest  and  ten- 
derest  love,  such  as  used  to  issue  from  a 
heart  like  hers;  and  he  himself  had  written 
her  many  and  many  a  sonnet  full  of  wit  and 
tenderness.  She  often  left  Viterbo  and  other 
*59 


MICHAEL  ANGELO'S  SONNETS 

places,  where  she  had  gone  for  pleasure,  and 
to  pass  the  summer,  and  came  to  Rome  for 
no  other  reason  than  to  see  Michael  Angelo. 
And  in  return  he  bore  her  so  much  love 
that  I  remember  hearing  him  say  that  he 
regretted  nothing  except  that  when  he  went 
to  see  her  on  her  death-bed  he  had  not  kissed 
her  brow  and  her  cheek  as  he  had  kissed  her 
hand.  He  was  many  times  overwhelmed  at 
the  thought  of  her  death,  and  used  to  be  as 
one  out  of  his  mind." 

It  seems,  from  reading  the  sonnets,  that 
some  of  those  which  are  addressed  to  women 
must  belong  to  a  period  anterior  to  his  friend- 
ship with  Vittoria.  This  appears  from  the 
internal  evidence  of  style  and  feeling,  as 
well  as  by  references  in  the  later  sonnets. 

One  other  fact  must  be  mentioned,  —  both 
Vittoria  and  Michael  Angelo  belonged  to, 
or  at  least  sympathized  with,  the  Piagnoni, 
and  were  in  a  sense  disciples  of  Savonarola. 
Now,  it  is  this  religious  element  which  makes 
Michael  Angelo  seem  to  step  out  of  his 
country  and  out  of  his  century  and  across 
time  and  space  into  our  own.  This  reli- 
gious feeling  is  of  a  kind  perfectly  familiar 
to  us;  indeed,  of  a  kind  inborn  and  native 
to  us.  Whether  we  be  reading  the  English 
prayer-book  or  listening  to  the  old  German 
1 60 


MICHAEL  ANGELO'S  SONNETS 

Passion  Music,  there  is  a  certain  note  of  the 
spirit  which,  when  we  hear  it,  we  perfectly 
recognize  as  a  part  of  ourselves.  What  we 
recognize  is,  in  fact,  the  Protestantism  which 
swept  over  Europe  during  the  century  of 
Michael  Angelo's  existence;  which  con- 
quered Teutonic  Europe,  and  was  conquered, 
but  not  extinguished,  in  Latin  Europe;  and 
a  part  of  which  survives  in  ourselves.  If 
one  wishes  to  feel  the  power  of  Savonarola, 
one  may  do  so  in  these  sonnets.  We  had 
connected  Michael  Angelo  with  the  Renais- 
sance, but  we  are  here  face  to  face  with  the 
Reformation.  We  cannot  help  being  a  little 
surprised  at  this.  We  cannot  help  being 
surprised  at  finding  how  well  we  know  this 
man. 

Few  of  us  are  familiar  enough  with  the 
language  of  the  plastic  arts  to  have  seen 
without  prompting  this  same  modern  ele- 
ment in  Michael  Angelo's  painting  and 
sculpture.  We  might,  perhaps,  have  recog- 
nized it  in  the  Pieta  in  St.  Peter's.  We 
may  safely  say,  however,  that  it  exists  in  all 
his  works.  It  is  in  the  Medicean  statues; 
it  is  in  the  Julian  marbles;  it  is  in  the 
Sistine  ceiling.  What  is  there  in  these 
figures  that  they  leave  us  so  awestruck,  that 
they  seem  so  like  the  sound  of  trumpets 
ir  161 


MICHAEL  ANGELO'S  SONNETS 

blowing  from  a  spiritual  world  ?  The  in- 
telligence that  could  call  them  forth,  the 
craft  that  could  draw  them,  have  long  since 
perished.  But  the  meaning  survives  the 
craft.  The  lost  arts  retain  their  power  over 
us.  We  understand  but  vaguely,  yet  we  are 
thrilled.  We  cannot  decipher  the  signs,  yet 
we  subscribe  to  their  import.  The  world 
from  which  Michael  Angelo's  figures  speak 
is  our  own  world,  after  all.  That  is  the 
reason  they  are  so  potent,  so  intimate,  so 
inimitably  significant.  We  may  be  sure 
that  the  affinity  which  we  feel  with  Michael 
Angelo,  and  do  not  feel  with  any  other  artist 
of  that  age,  springs  from  experiences  and 
beliefs  in  him  which  are  similar  to  our 
own. 

His  work  speaks  to  the  moral  sense  more 
directly  and  more  powerfully  than  that  of 
any  one,  —  so  directly  and  so  powerfully, 
indeed,  that  we  whose  physical  senses  are 
dull,  and  whose  moral  sense  is  acute,  are 
moved  by  Michael  Angelo,  although  the  rest 
of  the  cinque  cento  culture  remain  a  closed 
book  to  us. 

It  is  difficult,  this  conjuring  with  the  un- 
recoverable past,  so  rashly  done  by  us  all. 
Yet  we  must  use  what  light  we  have.  Re- 
membering, then,  that  painting  is  not  the 
162 


MICHAEL    ANGELO'S    SONNETS 

reigning  mode  of  expression  in  recent  times, 
and  that  in  dealing  with  it  we  are  dealing 
with  a  vehicle  of  expression  with  which  we 
are  not  spontaneously  familiar,  we  may  yet 
draw  conclusions  which  are  not  fantastic,  if 
we  base  them  upon  the  identity  of  one  man's 
nature  some  part  of  which  we  are  sure  we 
understand.  We  may  throw  a  bridge  from 
the  ground  in  the  sonnets,  upon  which  we 
are  sure  we  stand  firmly,  to  the  ground  in 
the  frescos,  which,  by  reason  of  our  own 
ignorance,  is  less  certain  ground  to  us,  and 
we  may  walk  from  one  side  to  the  other  amid 
the  elemental  forces  of  this  same  man's 
mind. 

XXXVIII 

Give  me  again,  ye  fountains  and  ye  streams, 
That  flood  of  life,  not  yours,  that  swells  your  front 
Beyond  the  natural  fulness  of  your  wont. 
I  gave,  and  I  take  back  as  it  beseems. 
And  thou  dense  choking  atmosphere  on  high 
Disperse  thy  fog  of  sighs  —  for  it  is  mine, 
And  make  the  glory  of  the  sun  to  shine 
Again  on  my  dim  eyes.  —  O,  Earth  and  Sky 
Give  me  again  the  footsteps  I  have  trod. 

Let  the  paths  grow  where  I  walked  them  bare, 
The  echoes  where  I  waked  them  with  my  prayer 
Be  deaf  —  and  let  those  eyes  —  those  eyes,  O  God, 
Give  me  the  light  I  lent  them.  —  That  some  soul 
May  take  my  love.     Thou  hadst  no  need  of  it. 
163 


MICHAEL  ANGELO'S  SONNETS 

This  rough  and  exceedingly  obscure  son- 
net, in  which  strong  feeling  has  condensed 
and  distorted  the  language,  seems  to  have 
been  written  by  a  man  who  has  been  in  love 
and  has  been  repulsed.  The  shock  has  re- 
stored him  to  a  momentary  realization  of  the 
whole  experience.  He  looks  at  the  land- 
scape, and  lo !  the  beauty  has  dropped  out  of 
it.  The  stream  has  lost  its  power,  and  the 
meadow  its  meaning.  Summer  has  stopped. 
His  next  thought  is:  "But  it  is  I  who  had 
lent  the  landscape  this  beauty.  That  land- 
scape was  myself,  my  dower,  my  glory,  my 
birthright,"  and  so  he  breaks  out  with  "Give 
me  back  the  light  I  threw  upon  you,"  and  so 
on  till  the  bitter  word  flung  to  the  woman  in 
the  last  line.  The  same  clearness  of  thought 
and  obscurity  of  expression  and  the  same  pas- 
sion is  to  be  found  in  the  famous  sonnet  — 
" Non  ha  F  ottimo  artista  alcun  concetto"  — 
where  he  blames  himself  for  not  being  able  to 
obtain  her  good-will  — as  a  bad  sculptor  who 
cannot  hew  out  the  beauty  from  the  rock,  al- 
though he  feels  it  to  be  there;  and  in  that 
heart-breaking  one  where  he  says  that  people 
may  only  draw  from  life  what  they  give  to 
it,  and  says  no  good  can  come  to  a  man  who, 
looking  on  such  great  beauty,  feels  such  pain. 

It  is  not  profitable,  nor  is  it  necessary  for 
164 


MICHAEL  ANGELO'S  SONNETS 

the  comprehension  of  the  poems,  to  decide 
to  whom  or  at  what  period  each  one  was 
written.  There  is  dispute  about  some  of 
them  as  to  whether  they  were  addressed  to 
men  or  women.  There  is  question  as  to 
others  whether  they  are  prayers  addressed 
to  Christ  or  love  poems  addressed  to  Vittoria. 
In  this  latter  case,  perhaps,  Michael  Angelo 
did  not  himself  know  which  they  were. 

Vittoria  used  to  instruct  him  in  religion, 
and  he  seems  to  have  felt  for  her  a  love  so 
deep,  so  reverent,  so  passionate,  and  so  touch- 
ing that  the  words  are  alive  in  which  he 
mentions  her. 

"I  wished,"  he  writes  beneath  a  sonnet 
which  he  sent  her,  evidently  in  return  for 
some  of  her  own  religious  poems,  "  I  wished, 
before  taking  the  things  that  you  had  many 
times  deigned  to  give  me,  in  order  that  I 
might  receive  them  the  less  unworthily,  to 
make  something  for  you  from  my  own  hand. 
But  then,  remembering  and  knowing  that  the 
grace  of  God  may  not  be  bought,  and  that 
to  accept  it  reluctantly  is  the  greatest  sin,  I 
confess  my  fault,  and  willingly  receive  the 
said  things,  and  when  they  shall  arrive,  not 
because  they  are  in  my  house,  but  I  myself 
as  being  in  a  house  of  theirs,  shall  deem 
myself  in  Paradise." 

165 


MICHAEL  ANGELO'S  SONNETS 

We  must  not  forget  that  at  this  time 
Michael  Angelo  was  an  old  man,  that  he 
carried  about  with  him  a  freshness  and  vigor 
of  feeling  that  most  people  lose  with  their 
youth.  A  reservoir  of  emotion  broke  loose 
within  him  at  a  time  when  it  caused  his 
hale  old  frame  suffering  to  undergo  it,  and 
reillumined  his  undimmed  intellect  to  cope 
with  it.  A  mystery  play  was  enacted  in 
him,  —  each  sonnet  is  a  scene.  There  is  the 
whole  of  a  man  in  each  of  many  of  these 
sonnets.  They  do  not  seem  so  much  like 
poems  as  like  microcosms.  They  are  ele- 
mentally complete.  The  soul  of  man  could 
be  evolved  again  from  them  if  the  formula 

were  lost. 

XL 

I  know  not  if  it  be  the  longed  for  light 
Of  its  creator  which  the  soul  perceives, 
Or  if  in  people's  memory  there  lives 

A  touch  of  early  grace  that  keeps  them  bright 

Or  else  ambition,  —  or  some  dream  whose  might 
Brings  to  the  eyes  the  hope  the  heart  conceives 
And  leaves  a  burning  feeling  when  it  leaves  — 

That  tears  are  welling  in  me  as  I  write. 

The  things  I  feel,  the  things  I  follow  and  the  things 
I  seek  —  are  not  in  me,  —  1  hardly  know  the  place 
To  find  them.     It  is  others  make  them  mine. 
It  happens  when  I  see  thee  —  and  it  brings 

Sweet  pain  —  a  yes,  —  a  no,  —  sorrow  and  grace 

Surely  it  must  have  been  those  eyes  of  thine. 

166 


MICHAEL    ANGELO'S    SONNETS 

There  are  others  which  give  a  most  touch- 
ing picture  of  extreme  piety  in  extreme  old 
age.  And  there  are  still  others  which  are 
both  love  poems  and  religious  poems  at  the 
same  time. 

LV 

Thou  knowest  that  I  know  that  thou  dost  know 
How,  to  enjoy  thee,  I  did  come  more  near. 
Thou  knowest,  I  know  thou  knowest  —  I  am  here. 

Would  we  had  given  our  greetings  long  ago. 

If  true  the  hope  thou  hast  to  me  revealed, 
If  true  the  plighting  of  a  sacred  troth, 
Let  the  wall  fall  that  stands  between  us  both, 

For  griefs  are  doubled  when  they  are  concealed. 

If,  loved  one,  —  if  I  only  loved  in  thee 

What  thou  thyself  dost  love,  —  't  is  to  this  end 
The  spirit  with  his  beloved  is  allied. 

The  things  thy  face  inspires  and  teaches  me 
Mortality  doth  little  comprehend. 

Before  we  understand  we  must  have  died. 

LI 

Give  me  the  time  when  loose  the  reins  I  flung 

Upon  the  neck  of  galloping  desire. 
Give  me  the  angel  face  that  now  among 

The  angels,  —  tempers  Heaven  with  its  fire. 
Give  the  quick  step  that  now  is  grown  so  old, 

The  ready  tears  —  the  blaze  at  thy  behest, 
If  thou  dost  seek  indeed,  O  Love  !  to  hold 

Again  thy  reign  of  terror  in  my  breast. 
If  it  be  true  that  thou  dost  only  live 

Upon  the  sweet  and  bitter  pains  of  man 
167 


MICHAEL  ANGELO'S  SONNETS 

Surely  a  weak  old  man  small  food  can  give 

Whose  years  strike  deeper  than  thine  arrows  can. 
Upon  life's  farthest  limit  I  have  stood  — 
What  folly  to  make  fire  of  burnt  wood. 

The  occasion  of  the  following  was  prob- 
ably some  more  than  wonted  favor  shown  to 
him  by  Vittoria. 

XXVI. 

Great  joy  no  less  than  grief  doth  murder  men. 
The  thief,  even  at  the  gallows,  may  be  killed 
If,  while  through  every  vein  with  fear  he  's  chilled, 

Sudden  reprieve  do  set  him  free  again. 

Thus  hath  this  bounty  from  you  in  my  pain 

Through  all  my  griefs  and  sufferings  fiercely  thrilled, 
Coming  from  a  breast  with  sovereign  mercy  filled, 

And  more  than  weeping,  cleft  my  heart  in  twain. 

Good  news,  like  bad,  may  bring  the  taker  death. 
The  heart  is  rent  as  with  the  sharpest  knife, 
Be  it  pressure  or  expansion  cause  the  rift. 
Let  thy  great  beauty  which  God  cherisheth 
Limit  my  joy  if  it  desire  my  life  — 
The  unworthy  dies  beneath  so  great  a  gift. 

XXVIII 

The  heart  is  not  the  life  of  love  like  mine. 
The  love  I  love  thee  with  has  none  of  it. 
For  hearts  to  sin  and  mortal  thought  incline 
And  for  love's  habitation  are  unfit. 
God,  when  our  souls  were  parted  from  Him,  made 
Of  me  an  eye  —  of  thee,  splendor  and  light. 
1 68 


MICHAEL  ANGELO'S  SONNETS 

Even  in  the  parts  of  thee  which  are  to  fade 

Thou  hast  the  glory  ;  I  have  only  sight. 

Fire  from  its  heat  you  may  not  analyze, 

Nor  worship  from  eternal  beauty  take, 

Which  deifies  the  lover  as  he  bows. 

Thou  hast  that  Paradise  all  within  thine  eyes 

Where  first  I  loved  thee.     'T  is  for  that  love's  sake 

My  soul 's  on  fire  with  thine,  beneath  thy  brows. 

The  German  musicians  of  the  seventeenth 
century  used  to  write  voluntaries  for  the 
organ,  using  the  shorthand  of  the  older  nota- 
tion ;  they  jotted  down  the  formulas  of  the 
successive  harmonies  expressed  in  terms  of 
the  chords  merely.  The  transitions  and  the 
musical  explanation  were  left  to  the  indi- 
vidual performer.  And  Michael  Angelo  has 
left  behind  him,  as  it  were,  the  poetical 
equivalents  of  such  shorthand  musical  for- 
mulas. The  harmonies  are  wonderful.  The 
successions  show  a  great  grasp  of  compre- 
hension, but  you  cannot  play  them  without 
filling  them  out. 

"Is  that  music,  after  all,"  one  may  ask, 
"which  leaves  so  much  to  the  performer, 
and  is  that  poetry,  after  all,  which  leaves  so 
much  to  the  reader?  "  It  seems  you  must  be 
a  Kapellmeister  or  a  student,  or  dilettante 
of  some  sort,  before  you  can  transpose  and 
illustrate  these  hieroglyphics.  There  is  some 
truth  in  this  criticism,  and  the  modesty  of 
169 


MICHAEL  ANGELO'S  SONNETS 

purpose  in  the  poems  is  the  only  answer  to 
it.  They  claim  no  comment.  Comment 
claims  them.  Call  them  not  poetry  if  you 
will.  They  are  a  window  which  looks  in 
upon  the  most  extraordinary  nature  of  modern 
times,  — a  nature  whose  susceptibility  to 
impressions  of  form  through  the  eye  allies 
it  to  classical  times;  a  nature  which  on  the 
emotional  side  belongs  to  our  own  day. 

Is  it  a  wonder  that  this  man  was  venerated 
with  an  almost  superstitious  regard  in  Italy, 
and  in  the  sixteenth  century?  His  creations 
were  touched  with  a  superhuman  beauty 
which  his  contemporaries  felt,  yet  charged 
with  a  profoundly  human  meaning  which 
they  could  not  fathom.  No  one  epoch  has 
held  the  key  to  him.  There  lives  not  a  man 
and  there  never  has  lived  a  man  who  could 
say,  "I  fully  understand  Michael  Angelo's 
works."  It  will  be  said  that  the  same  is 
true  of  all  the  very  greatest  artists,  and  so  it 
is  in  a  measure.  But  as  to  the  others,  that 
truth  comes  as  an  afterthought  and  an  admis- 
sion. As  to  Michael  Angelo,  it  is  primary 
and  overwhelming  impression.  "  We  are  not 
sure  that  we  comprehend  him,"  say  the  cen- 
turies as  they  pass,  "  but  of  this  we  are  sure : 
Stmt  I  ne  maggior  iwm  non  nacqne  mai. " 


170 


THE    FOURTH    CANTO   OF 
THE   INFERNO 


THE   FOURTH   CANTO    OF 
THE   INFERNO 

There  are  many  great  works  of  fiction  where 
the  interest  lies  in  the  situation  and  develop- 
ment of  the  characters  or  in  the  wrought-up 
climax  of  the  action,  and  where  it  is  necessary 
to  read  the  whole  work  before  one  can  feel 
the  force  of  the  catastrophe.  But  Dante's 
poem  is  a  series  of  disconnected  scenes,  held 
together  only  by  the  slender  thread  of  the 
itinerary.  The  scenes  vary  in  length  from  a 
line  or  two  to  a  page  or  two  ;  and  the  power 
of  them  comes,  one  may  say,  not  at  all  from 
their  connection  with  each  other,  but  entirely 
from  the  language  in  which  they  are  given. 

A  work  of  this  kind  is  hard  to  translate 
because  verbal  felicities,  to  use  a  mild  term, 
are  untranslatable.  What  English  words  can 
render  the  mystery  of  that  unknown  voice 
that  calls  out  of  the  deep,  — 

"  Onorate  '1  altissimo  poeta, 
Torna  sua  ombra  che  era  dipartita  "  ? 

The  cry  breaks  upon  the  night,  full  of  awful 
greeting,  proclamation,  prophecy,  and  leaves 
i73 


FOURTH  CANTO  OF  INFERNO 

the  reader  standing  next  to  Virgil,  afraid  now 
to  lift  up  his  eyes  to  the  poet.  Awe  breathes 
in  the  cadence  of  the  words  themselves.  And 
so  with  many  of  the  most  splendid  lines  in 
Dante,  the  meaning  inheres  in  the  very  Italian 
words.  They  alone  shine  with  the  idea. 
They  alone  satisfy  the  spiritual  vision. 

Of  all  the  greatest  poets,  Dante  is  most 
foreign  to  the  genius  of  the  English  race. 
From  the  point  of  view  of  English-speaking 
people,  he  is  lacking  in  humor.  It  might 
seem  at  first  blush  as  if  the  argument  of  his 
poem  were  a  sufficient  warrant  for  serious- 
ness ;  but  his  seriousness  is  of  a  nature  strange 
to  northern  nations.  There  is  in  it  a  gaunt 
and  sallow  earnestness  which  appears  to  us 
inhuman. 

In  the  treatment  of  the  supernatural  the 
Teutonic  nations  have  generally  preserved  a 
touch  of  humor.  This  is  so  intrinsically  true 
to  the  Teutonic  way  of  feeling  that  the  humor 
seems  to  go  with  and  to  heighten  the  terror  of 
the  supernatural.  When  Hamlet,  in  the  scene 
on  the  midnight  terrace,  addresses  the  ghost 
as  "  old  mole,"  "  old  truepenny,"  etc.,  we 
may  be  sure  that  he  is  in  a  frenzy  of  excite- 
ment and  apprehension.  Perhaps  the  expla- 
nation of  this  mixture  of  humor  and  terror, 
is  that  when  the  mind  feels  itself  shaken  to  its 
i74 


FOURTH    CANTO   OF   INFERNO 

foundations  by  the  immediate  presence  of  the 
supernatural,  —  palsied,  as  it  were,  with  fear,  — 
there  comes  to  its  rescue,  and  as  an  antidote 
to  the  fear  itself,  a  reserve  of  humor,  almost  of 
levity.  Staggered  by  the  unknown,  the  mind 
opposes  it  with  the  homely  and  the  familiar. 
The  northern  nations  were  too  much  afraid  of 
ghosts  to  take  them  seriously.  The  sight  of 
one  made  a  man  afraid  he  should  lose  his 
wits  if  he  gave  way  to  his  fright.  Thus  it 
has  come  about  that  in  the  sincerest  terror  of 
the  north  there  is  a  touch  of  grotesque  humor ; 
and  this  touch  we  miss  in  Dante.  The  hundred 
cantos  of  his  poem  are  unrelieved  by  a  single 
scene  of  comedy.  The  strain  of  exalted 
tragedy  is  maintained  throughout.  His  jests 
and  wit  are  not  of  the  laughing  kind.  Some- 
times they  are  grim  and  terrible,  sometimes 
playful,  but  always  serious  and  full  of  meaning. 
This  lack  of  humor  becomes  very  palpable 
in  a  translation,  where  it  is  not  disguised  by 
the  transcendent  beauty  of  Dante's  style. 

There  is  another  difficulty  peculiar  to  the 
translating  of  Dante  into  English.  English  is 
essentially  a  diffuse  and  prodigal  language. 
The  great  English  writers  have  written  with  a 
free  hand,  prolific,  excursive,  diffuse.  Shake- 
speare, Sir  Thomas  Browne,  Sir  Walter  Scott. 
Robert  Browning,  all  the  typical  writers  of 
*75 


FOURTH    CANTO    OF    INFERNO 

English,  have  been  many-worded.  They  have 
been  men  who  said  everything  that  came  into 
their  heads,  and  trusted  to  their  genius  to 
make  their  writings  readable.  The  eighteenth 
century  in  England,  with  all  its  striving  after 
classical  precision,  has  left  behind  it  no  great 
laconic  English  classic  who  stands  in  the  first 
rank.  Our  own  Emerson  is  concise  enough, 
but  he  is  disconnected  and  prophetic.  Dante 
is  not  only  concise,  but  logical,  deductive, 
prone  to  ratiocination.  He  set  down  nothing 
that  he  had  not  thought  of  a  thousand  times, 
and  conned  over,  arranged,  and  digested.  We 
have  in  English  no  prototype  for  such  con- 
densation. There  is  no  native  work  in  the 
language  written  in  anything  which  approaches 
the  style  of  Dante. 

My  heavy  sleep  a  sullen  thunder  broke, 
So  that  I  shook  myself,  springing  upright, 
Like  one  awakened  by  a  sudden  stroke, 
And  gazed  with  fixed  eyes  and  new-rested  sight 
Slowly  about  me,  —  awful  privilege,  — 
To  know  the  place  that  held  me,  if  I  might. 
In  truth  I  found  myself  upon  the  edge 
That  girds  the  valley  of  the  dreadful  pit, 
Circling  the  infinite  wailing  with  its  ledge. 
Dark,  deep,  and  cloudy,  to  the  depths  of  it 
Eye  could  not  probe,  and  though  I  bent  mine  low, 
It  helped  my  vain  conjecture  not  a  whit. 
"  Let  us  go  down  to  the  blind  world  below," 
Began  the  poet,  with  a  face  like  death, 
176 


FOURTH    CANTO   OF   INFERNO 

"  I  shall  go  first,  thou  second."     "  Say  not  so," 
Cried  I  when  I  again  could  find  my  breath, 
For  I  had  seen  the  whiteness  of  his  face, 
"  How  shall  I  come  if  thee  it  frighteneth?" 
And  he  replied  :  "  The  anguish  of  the  place 
And  those  that  dwell  there  thus  hath  painted  me 
With  pity,  not  with  fear.     But  come  apace ; 
The  spur  of  the  journey  pricks  us."     Thus  did  he 
Enter  himself,  and  take  me  in  with  him, 
Into  the  first  great  circle's  mystery 
That  winds  the  deep  abyss  about  the  brim. 

Here  there  came  borne  upon  the  winds  to  us, 
Not  cries,  but  sighs  that  filled  the  concave  dim, 
And  kept  the  eternal  breezes  tremulous. 
The  cause  is  grief,  but  grief  unlinked  to  pain, 
That  makes  the  unnumbered  peoples  suffer  thus. 
I  saw  great  crowds  of  children,  women,  men, 
Wheeling  below.     "  Thou  dost  not  seek  to  know 
What  spirits  are  these  thou  seest?"     Thus  again 
My  master  spoke.     "  But  ere  we  further  go, 
Thou  must  be  sure  that  these  feel  not  the  weight 
Of  sin.     They  well  deserved,  —  and  yet  not  so. — 
They  had  not  baptism,  which  is  the  gate 
Of  Faith,  —  thou  boldest.     If  they  lived  before 
The  days  of  Christ,  though  sinless,  in  that  state 
God  they  might  never  worthily  adore. 
And  I  myself  am  such  an  one  as  these. 
For  this  shortcoming —  on  no  other  score  — 
We  are  lost,  and  most  of  all  our  torment  is 
That  lost  to  hope  we  live  in  strong  desire." 
Grief  seized  my  heart  to  hear  these  words  of  his, 
Because  most  splendid  souls  and  hearts  of  fire 
I  recognized,  hung  in  that  Limbo  there. 

12  I77 


FOURTH   CANTO   OF   INFERNO 

"  Tell  me,  my  master  dear,  tell  me,  my  sire," 
Cried  I  at  last,  with  eager  hope  to  share 
That  all-convincing  faith,  —  "  but  went  there  not 
One,  —  once, — from  hence, — made  happy  though  it 

were 
Through  his  own  merit  or  another's  lot  ?  " 
"  I  was  new  come  into  this  place,"  said  he, 
Who  seemed  to  guess  the  purport  of  my  thought, 
"  When  Him  whose  brows  were  bound  with  Victory 
I  saw  come  conquering  through  this  prison  dark. 
He  set  the  shade  of  our  first  parent  free, 
With  Abel,  and  the  builder  of  the  ark, 
And  him  that  gave  the  laws  immutable, 
And  Abraham,  obedient  patriarch, 
David  the  king,  and  ancient  Israel, 
His  father  and  his  children  at  his  side, 
And  the  wife  Rachel  that  he  loved  so  well, 
And  gave  them  Paradise,  —  and  before  these  men 
None  tasted  of  salvation  that  have  died." 

We  did  not  pause  while  he  was  talking  then, 
But  held  our  constant  course  along  the  track, 
Where  spirits  thickly  thronged  the  wooded  glen. 
And  we  had  reached  a  point  whence  to  turn  back 
Had  not  been  far,  when  I,  still  touched  with  fear, 
Perceived  a  fire,  that,  struggling  with  the  black, 
Made  conquest  of  a  luminous  hemisphere. 
The  place  was  distant  still,  but  I  could  see 
Clustered  about  the  fire,  as  we  drew  near, 
Figures  of  an  austere  nobility. 
"  Thou  who  dost  honor  science  and  love  art, 
Pray  who  are  these,  whose  potent  dignity 
Doth  eminently  set  them  thus  apart?" 
The  poet  answered  me,  "  The  honored  fame 
178 


FOURTH    CANTO   OF   INFERNO 

That  made  their  lives  illustrious  touched  the  heart 

Of  God  to  advance  them."     Then  a  voice  there  came, 

"  Honor  the  mighty  poet ;  "  and  again, 

"  His  shade  returns,  —  do  honor  to  his  name." 

And  when  the  voice  had  finished  its  refrain, 

I  saw  four  giant  shadows  coming  on. 

They  seemed  nor  sad  nor  joyous  in  their  mien. 

And  my  good  master  said  :  "  See  him,  my  son, 

That  bears  the  sword  and  walks  before  the  rest, 

And  seems  the  father  of  the  three,  —  that  one 

Is  Homer,  sovran  poet.     The  satirist 

Horace  comes  next;  third,  Ovid;  and  the  last 

Is  Lucan.     The  lone  voice  that  name  expressed 

That  each  doth  share  with  me ;  therefore  they  haste 

To  greet  and  do  me  honor  ;  —  nor  do  they  wrong." 

Thus  did  I  see  the  assembled  school  who  graced 

The  master  of  the  most  exalted  song, 

That  like  an  eagle  soars  above  the  rest. 

When  they  had  talked  together,  though  not  long, 

They  turned  to  me,  nodding  as  to  a  guest. 

At  which  my  master  smiled,  but  yet  more  high 

They  lifted  me  in  honor.     At  their  behest 

I  went  with  them  as  of  their  company, 

And  made  the  sixth  among  those  mighty  wits. 

Thus  towards  the  light  we  walked  in  colloquy 
Of  things  my  silence  wisely  here  omits, 
As  there  'twas  sweet  to  speak  them,  till  we  came 
To  where  a  seven  times  circled  castle  sits, 
Whose  walls  are  watered  by  a  lovely  stream. 
This  we  crossed  over  as  it  had  been  dry, 
Passing  the  seven  gates  that  guard  the  same, 
And  reached  a  meadow,  green  as  Arcady. 
179 


FOURTH    CANTO   OF   INFERNO 

People  were  there  with  deep,  slow-moving  eyes 
Whose  looks  were  weighted  with  authority. 
Scant  was  their  speech,  but  rich  in  melodies. 
The  walls  receding  left  a  pasture  fair, 
A  place  all  full  of  light  and  of  great  size, 
So  we  could  see  each  spirit  that  was  there. 
And  straight  before  my  eyes  upon  the  green 
Were  shown  to  me  the  souls  of  those  that  were, 
Great  spirits  it  exalts  me  to  have  seen. 
Electra  with  her  comrades  I  descried, 
I  saw  ^Eneas,  and  knew  Hector  keen, 
And  in  full  armor  Caesar,  falcon-eyed, 
Camilla  and  the  Amazonian  queen, 
King  Latin  with  Lavinia  at  his  side, 
Brutus  that  did  avenge  the  Tarquin's  sin, 
Lucrece,  Cornelia,  Martia  Julia, 
And  by  himself  the  lonely  Saladin. 

The  Master  of  all  thinkers  next  I  saw 
Amid  the  philosophic  family. 
All  eyes  were  turned  on  him  with  reverent  awe ; 
Plato  and  Socrates  were  next  his  knee, 
Then  Heraclitus  and  Empedocles, 
Thales  and  Anaxagoras,  and  he 
That  based  the  world  on  chance ;  and  next  to  these, 
Zeno,  Diogenes,  and  that  good  leech 
The  herb-collector,  Dioscorides. 
Orpheus  I  saw,  Livy  and  Tully,  each 
Flanked  by  old  Seneca's  deep  moral  lore, 
Euclid  and  Ptolemy,  and  within  their  reach 
Hippocrates  and  Avicenna's  store, 
The  sage  that  wrote  the  master  commentary, 
Averois,  with  Galen  and  a  score 
Of  great  physicians.     But  my  pen  were  weary 
Depicting  all  of  that  majestic  plain 
Splendid  with  many  an  antique  dignitary. 
180 


FOURTH    CANTO   OF   INFERNO 

My  theme  doth  drive  me  on,  and  words  are  vain 
To  give  the  thought  the  thing  itself  conveys. 
The  six  of  us  were  now  cut  down  to  twain. 
My  guardian  led  me  forth  by  other  ways, 
Far  from  the  quiet  of  that  trembling  wind, 
And  from  the  gentle  shining  of  those  rays, 
To  places  where  all  light  was  left  behind. 


1S1 


ROBERT    BROWNING 


ROBERT   BROWNING 

THERE  is  a  period  in  the  advance  of  any  great 
man's  influence  between  the  moment  when  he 
appears  and  the  moment  when  he  has  be- 
come historical,  during  which  it  is  difficult 
to  give  any  succinct  account  of  him.  We 
are  ourselves  a  part  of  the  thing  we  would 
describe.  The  element  which  we  attempt  to 
isolate  for  purposes  of  study  is  still  living 
within  us.  Our  science  becomes  tinged  with 
autobiography.  Such  must  be  the  fate  of 
any  essay  on  Browning  written  at  the  present 
time. 

The  generation  to  whom  his  works  were 
unmeaning  has  hardly  passed  away.  The 
generation  he  spoke  for  still  lives.  His  in- 
fluence seems  still  to  be  expanding.  The 
literature  of  Browning  dictionaries,  phrase- 
books,  treatises,  and  philosophical  studies 
grows  daily.  Mr.  Cooke  in  his  Guide  to 
Browning  (1893)  gives  a  condensed  cata- 
logue of  the  best  books  and  essays  on  Brown- 
ing, which  covers  many  finely  printed  pages. 
This  class  of  book  —  the  text-book  —  is  not 
185 


ROBERT    BROWNING 

the  product  of  impulse.  The  text-book  is  a 
commercial  article  and  follows  the  demand 
as  closely  as  the  reaper  follows  the  crop. 
We  can  tell  the  acreage  under  cultivation  by- 
looking  over  the  account  books  of  the  makers 
of  farm  implements.  Thousands  of  people 
are  now  studying  Browning,  following  in  his 
footsteps,  reading  lives  of  his  heroes,  and 
hunting  up  the  subjects  he  treated. 

This  Browningism  which  we  are  disposed 
to  laugh  at  is  a  most  interesting  secondary 
outcome  of  his  influence.  It  has  its  roots 
in  natural  piety,  and  the  educational  value 
of  it  is  very  great. 

Browning's  individuality  created  for  him  a 
personal  following,  and  he  was  able  to  re- 
spond to  the  call  to  leadership.  Unlike 
Carlyle,  he  had  something  to  give  his  disci- 
ples beside  the  immediate  satisfaction  of  a 
spiritual  need.  He  gave  them  not  only  meal 
but  seed.  In  this  he  was  like  Emerson ; 
but  Emerson's  little  store  of  finest  grain  is  of 
a  different  soil.  Emerson  lived  in  a  cottage 
and  saw  the  stars  over  his  head  through  his 
skylight.  Browning,  on  the  other  hand, 
loved  pictures,  places,  music,  men  and 
women,  and  his  works  are  like  the  house  of 
a  rich  man,  — a  treasury  of  plunder  from 
many  provinces  and  many  ages,  whose  man- 
186 


ROBERT    BROWNING 

ners  and  passions  are  vividly  recalled  to  us. 
In  Emerson's  house  there  was  not  a  peg  to 
hang  a  note  upon,  —  "this  is  his  bookshelf, 
this  his  bed."  But  Browning's  palace  craves 
a  catalogue.  And  a  proper  catalogue  to 
such  a  palace  becomes  a  liberal  education. 

Robert  Browning  was  a  strong,  glowing, 
whole-souled  human  being,  who  enjoyed  life 
more  intensely  than  any  Englishman  since 
Walter  Scott.  He  was  born  among  books; 
and  circumstances  enabled  him  to  follow  his 
inclinations  and  become  a  writer,  —  a  poet  by 
profession.  He  was,  from  early  youth  to 
venerable  age,  a  centre  of  bounding  vitality, 
the  very  embodiment  of  spontaneous  life ; 
and  the  forms  of  poetry  in  which  he  so  fully 
and  so  accurately  expressed  himself  enable 
us  to  know  him  well.  Indeed,  only  great 
poets  are  known  so  intimately  as  we  know 
Robert  Browning. 

Religion  was  at  the  basis  of  his  character, 
and  it  was  the  function  of  religious  poetry 
that  his  work  fulfilled.  Inasmuch  as  no  man 
invents  his  own  theology,  but  takes  it  from 
the  current  world  and  moulds  it  to  his  needs, 
it  was  inevitable  that  Robert  Browning  should 
find  and  seize  upon  as  his  own  all  that  was 
optimistic  in  Christian  theology.  Everything 
that  was  hopeful  his  spirit  accepted ;  every- 
187 


ROBERT    BROWNING 

thing  that  was  sunny  and  joyful  and  good  for 
the  brave  soul  he  embraced.  What  was  dis- 
tressing he  rejected  or  explained  away.  In 
the  world  of  Robert  Browning  everything  was 
right. 

The  range  of  subject  covered  by  his  poems 
is  wider  than  that  of  any  other  poet  that  ever 
lived ;  but  the  range  of  his  ideas  is  exceed- 
ingly small.  We  need  not  apologize  for 
treating  Browning  as  a  theologian  and  a 
doctor  of  philosophy,  for  he  spent  a  long  life 
in  trying  to  show  that  a  poet  is  always  really 
both  —  and  he  has  almost  convinced  us. 
The  expositors  and  writers  of  text-books  have 
had  no  difficulty  in  formulating  his  theology, 
for  it  is  of  the  simplest  kind ;  and  his  views 
on  morality  and  art  are  logically  a  part  of  it. 
The  "  message  "  which  poets  are  convention- 
ally presumed  to  deliver,  was,  in  Browning's 
case,  a  very  definite  creed,  which  may  be 
found  fully  set  forth  in  any  one  of  twenty 
poems.  Every  line  of  his  poetry  is  logically 
dedicated  to  it. 

He  believes  that  the  development  of  the 
individual  soul  is  the  main  end  of  existence. 
The  strain  and  stress  of  life  are  incidental  to 
growth,  and  therefore  desirable.  Develop- 
ment and  growth  mean  a  closer  union  with 
God.     In  fact,  God  is  of  not  so  much  import- 


ROBERT    BROWNING 

ance  in  Himself,  but  as  the  end  towards 
which  man  tends.  That  irreverent  person 
who  said  that  Browning  uses  "  God "  as  a 
pigment  made  an  accurate  criticism  of  his 
theology.  In  Browning,  God  is  adjective  to 
man.  Browning  believes  that  all  conven- 
tional morality  must  be  reviewed  from  the 
standpoint  of  how  conduct  affects  the  actor 
himself,  and  what  effect  it  has  on  his  individ- 
ual growth.  The  province  of  art  and  of  all 
thinking  and  working  is  to  make  these  truths 
clear  and  to  grapple  with  the  problems  they 
give  rise  to. 

The  first  two  fundamental  beliefs  of  Brown- 
ing—  namely:  (i)  that,  ultimately  speaking, 
the  most  important  matter  in  the  world  is 
the  soul  of  a  man;  and  (2)  that  a  sense  of 
effort  is  coincident  with  development  —  are 
probably  true.  We  instinctively  feel  them  to 
be  true,  and  they  seem  to  be  receiving  support 
from  those  quarters  of  research  to  which  we 
look  for  light,  however  dim.  In  the  applica- 
tion of  his  dogmas  to  specific  cases  in  the 
field  of  ethics,  Browning  often  reaches  conclu- 
sions which  are  fair  subjects  for  disagreement. 
Since  most  of  our  conventional  morality  is 
framed  to  repress  the  individual,  he  finds  him- 
self at  war  with  it  —  in  revolt  against  it.  He 
is  habitually  pitted  against  it,  and  thus  ac- 
189 


ROBERT    BROWNING 

quires  modes  of  thought  which  sometimes 
lead  him  into  paradox  —  at  least,  to  conclu- 
sions at  odds  with  his  premises.  It  is  in  the 
course  of  exposition,  and  incidentally  to  his 
main  purpose  as  a  teacher  of  a  few  funda- 
mental ideas,  that  Browning  has  created  his 
masterpieces  of  poetry. 

Never  was  there  a  man  who  in  the  course 
of  a  long  life  changed  less.  What  as  a  boy 
he  dreamed  of  doing,  that  he  did.  The 
thoughts  of  his  earliest  poems  are  the  thoughts 
of  his  latest.  His  tales,  his  songs,  his  mono- 
logues, his  dramas,  his  jests,  his  sermons,  his 
rage,  his  prayer,  are  all  upon  the  same  theme  : 
whatever  fed  his  mind  nourished  these  beliefs. 
His  interest  in  the  world  was  solely  an  inter- 
est in  them.  He  saw  them  in  history  and  in 
music ;  his  travels  and  studies  brought  him 
back  nothing  else  but  proofs  of  them ;  the 
universe  in  each  of  its  manifestations  was  a 
commentary  upon  them.  His  nature  was 
the  simplest,  the  most  positive,  the  least 
given  to  abstract  speculation,  which  England 
can  show  in  his  time.  He  was  not  a  thinker, 
for  he  was  never  in  doubt.  He  had  recourse 
to  disputation  as  a  means  of  inculcating  truth, 
but  he  used  it  like  a  lawyer  arguing  a  case. 
His  conclusions  are  fixed  from  the  start 
Standing,  from  his  infancy,  upon  a  faith  as 
190 


ROBERT    BROWNING 

absolute  as  that  of  a  martyr,  he  has  never  for 
one  instant  undergone  the  experience  of  doubt, 
and  only  knows  that  there  is  such  a  thing 
because  he  has  met  with  it  in  other  people. 
The  force  of  his  feelings  is  so  much  greater 
than  his  intellect  that  his  mind  serves  his 
soul  like  a  valet.  Out  of  the  whole  cosmos 
he  takes  what  belongs  to  him  and  sustains 
him,  leaving  the  rest,  or  not  noting   it. 

There  never  was  a  great  poet  whose  scope 
was  so  definite.  That  is  the  reason  why  the 
world  is  so  cleanly  divided  into  people  who  do 
and  who  do  not  care  for  Browning.  One  real 
glimpse  into  him  gives  you  the  whole  of  him. 
The  public  which  loves  him  is  made  up  of 
people  who  have  been  through  certain  spiritual 
experiences  to  which  he  is  the  antidote.  The 
public  which  loves  him  not  consists  of  people 
who  have  escaped  these  experiences.  To  some 
he  is  a  strong,  rare,  and  precious  elixir,  which 
nothing  else  will  replace.  To  others,  who  do 
not  need  him,  he  is  a  boisterous  and  eccen- 
tric person,  —  a  Heracles  in  the  house  of 
mourning. 

Let  us  remember  his  main  belief,  —  the 
value  of  the  individual.  The  needs  of  society 
constantly  require  that  the  individual  be  sup- 
pressed. They  hold  him  down  and  punish 
him  at  every  point.  The  tyranny  of  order 
191 


ROBERT    BROWNING 

and  organization  —  of  monarch  or  public 
opinion  —  weights  him  and  presses  him  down. 
This  is  the  inevitable  tendency  of  all  stable 
social  arrangements.  Now  and  again  there 
arises  some  strong  nature  that  revolts  against 
the  influence  of  conformity  which  is  becoming 
intolerable,  —  against  the  atmosphere  of  caste 
or  theory ;  of  Egyptian  priest  or  Manchester 
economist;  of  absolutism  or  of  democracy. 

And  this  strong  nature  cries  out  that  the 
souls  of  men  are  being  injured,  and  that  they 
are  important ;  that  your  soul  and  my  soul 
are  more  important  than  Caesar  —  or  than 
the  survival  of  the  fittest.  Such  a  voice  was  the 
voice  of  Christ,  and  the  lesser  saviors  of  the 
world  bring  always  a  like  message  of  revolt : 
they  arise  to  fulfil  the  same  fundamental  need 
of  the  world. 

Carlyle,  Emerson,  Victor  Hugo,  Browning, 
were  prophets  to  a  generation  oppressed  in 
spirit,  whose  education  had  oppressed  them 
with  a  Jewish  law  of  Adam  Smith  and  Jeremy 
Bentham  and  Malthus,  of  Clarkson  and  Cob- 
den,  —  of  thought  for  the  million,  and  for  man 
in  the  aggregate.  "  To  what  end  is  all  this 
beneficence,  all  this  conscience,  all  this 
theory?  "  some  one  at  length  cries  out  "  For 
whom  is  it  in  the  last  analysis  that  you  legis- 
late ?  You  talk  of  man,  I  see  only  men" 
192 


ROBERT    BROWNING 

To  men  suffering  from  an  age  of  devotion 
to  humanity  came  Robert  Browning  as  a  lib- 
erator. Like  Carlyle,  he  was  understood  first 
in  this  country  because  we  had  begun  earlier 
with  our  theoretical  and  practical  philanthro- 
pies, and  had  taken  them  more  seriously. 
We  had  suffered  more.  We  needed  to  be 
told  that  it  was  right  to  love,  hate,  and  be 
angry,  to  sin  and  repent.  It  was  a  revelation 
to  us  to  think  that  we  had  some  inheritance 
in  the  joys  and  passions  of  mankind.  We 
needed  to  be  told  these  things  as  a  tired  child 
needs  to  be  comforted.  Browning  gave  them 
to  us  in  the  form  of  a  religion.  There  was  no 
one  else  sane  or  deep  or  wise  or  strong  enough 
to  know  what  we  lacked. 

If  ever  a  generation  had  need  of  a  poet,  — 
of  some  one  to  tell  them  they  might  cry  and 
not  be  ashamed,  rejoice  and  not  find  the  rea- 
son in  John  Stuart  Mill ;  some  one  who 
should  justify  the  claims  of  the  spirit  which 
was  starving  on  the  religion  of  humanity,  —  it 
was  the  generation  for  whom  Browning  wrote. 

Carlyle  had  seized  upon  the  French  Revo- 
lution, which  served  his  ends  because  it  was 
filled  with  striking,  with  powerful,  with  gro- 
tesque examples  of  individual  force.  In  his 
Hero  Worship  he  gives  his  countrymen  a 
philosophy  of  history  based  on  nothing  but 
13  193 


ROBERT    BROWNING 

worship  of  the  individual.  Browning  with  the 
same  end  in  view  gave  us  pictures  of  the  fif- 
teenth and  sixteenth  centuries  in  France  and 
Italy.  He  glorified  what  we  had  thought 
crime  and  error,  and  made  men  of  us.  He 
was  the  apostle  to  the  educated  of  a  most 
complex  period,  but  such  as  he  was,  he  was 
complete.  Those  people  to  whom  he  has 
been  a  poet  know  what  it  is  for  the  heart  to 
receive  full  expression  from  the  lips  of  an- 
other. 

The  second  thesis  which  Browning  insists 
on  —  the  identity  of  spiritual  suffering  with 
spiritual  growth  —  is  the  one  balm  of  the 
world.  It  is  said  that  recent  physiological 
experiment  shows  that  muscles  do  not  de- 
velop unless  exercised  up  to  what  is  called 
the  "  distress  point."  If  this  shall  prove  to 
be  an  instance  of  a  general  law,  —  if  the  strug- 
gles and  agony  of  the  spirit  are  really  signs 
of  an  increase  of  that  spiritual  life  which  is 
the  only  sort  of  life  we  can  conceive  of  now  or 
hereafter,  —  then  the  truth-to-feeling  of  much 
of  Browning's  poetry  has  a  scientific  basis. 
It  cannot  be  denied  that  Browning  held  firmly 
two  of  the  most  moving  and  far-reaching 
ideas  of  the  world,  and  he  expanded  them  in 
the  root,  leaf,  flower,  and  fruit  of  a  whole 
world  of  poetic  disquisition. 
194 


ROBERT    BROWNING 

It  is  unnecessary  at  this  day  to  point  out 
the  beauties  of  Browning  or  the  sagacity  with 
which  he  chose  his  effects.  He  gives  us  the 
sallow  wife  of  James  Lee,  whose  soul  is  known 
to  him,  Pippa  the  silk-spinning  girl,  two  men 
found  in  the  morgue,  persons  lost,  forgotten, 
or  misunderstood.  He  searches  the  world 
till  he  finds  the  man  whom  everybody  will 
concur  in  despising,  the  mediaeval  gramma- 
rian, and  he  writes  to  him  the  most  powerful 
ode  in  English,  the  mightiest  tribute  ever 
paid  to  a  man.  His  culture  and  his  learning 
are  all  subdued  to  what  he  works  in ;  they 
are  all  in  harness  to  draw  his  thought.  He 
mines  in  antiquity  or  drags  his  net  over  Ger- 
man philosophy  or  modern  drawing-rooms,  — 
all  to  the  same  end. 

In  that  miracle  of  power  and  beauty  — 
The  Flight  of  the  Duchess  —  he  has  im- 
provised a  whole  civilization  in  order  to  make 
the  setting  of  contrast  which  shall  cause  the 
soul  of  the  little  duchess  to  shine  clearly.  In 
Childe  Roland  he  creates  a  cycle,  an  epoch 
of  romance  and  mysticism,  because  he  re- 
quires it  as  a  stage  property.  In  A  Death 
in  the  Desert  you  have  the  East  in  the  first 
century  —  so  vividly  given  that  you  wish  in- 
stantly to  travel  there,  Bible  in  hand,  to  feel 
the  atmosphere  with  which  your  Bible  ought 
J95 


ROBERT    BROWNING 

always  to  have  been  filled.  His  reading 
brings  him  to  Euripides.  He  sees  that  Al- 
cestis  can  be  set  to  his  theme;  and  with  a 
week  or  two  of  labor,  while  staying  in  a 
country  house,  he  draws  out  of  the  Greek 
fable  the  world  of  his  own  meaning  and  shows 
it  shining  forth  in  a  living  picture  of  the  Greek 
theatre  which  has  no  counterpart  for  vitality 
in  any  modern  tongue. 

The  descriptive  and  narrative  powers  of 
Browning  are  above,  beyond,  and  outside  of 
all  that  has  been  done  in  English  in  our  time, 
as  the  odd  moments  prove  which  he  gave  to 
the  Pied  Piper,  The  Ride  from  Ghent  to 
Aix,  Incident  in  the  French  Camp.  These 
chips  from  his  workshop  passed  instantly  into 
popular  favor  because  they  were  written  in 
familiar  forms. 

How  powerfully  his  gifts  of  utterance  were 
brought  to  bear  upon  the  souls  of  men  will 
be  recorded,  even  if  never  understood,  by 
literary  historians.  It  is  idle  to  look  to  the 
present  generation  for  an  intelligible  account 
of  One  Word  More,  Rabbi  Ben  Ezra,  Pros- 
pice,  Saul,  The  Blot  on  the  'Scutcheon. 
They  must  be  judged  by  the  future  and  by 
men  who  can  speak  of  them  with  a  steady 
lip. 

It  must  be  conceded  that  the  conventional 
196 


ROBERT    BROWNING 

judgments  of  society  are  sometimes  right, 
and  Browning's  mission  led  him  occasion- 
ally into  paradox  and  j'eux  d' esprit.  Bishop 
Blougram  is  an  attempt  to  discover  whether 
a  good  case  cannot  be  made  out  for  the  in- 
dividual hypocrite.  The  Statue  and  the  Bust 
is  frankly  a  rcductio  ad  absurdum,  and  ends 
with  a  query. 

There  is  more  serious  trouble  with  others. 
The  Grammarian's  Funeral  is  false  to  fact, 
and  will  appear  so  to  posterity.  The  gram- 
marian was  not  a  hero,  and  our  calmer  mo- 
ments show  us  that  the  poem  is  not  a  great 
ode.  It  gave  certain  people  the  glow  of  a 
great  truth,  but  it  remains  a  paradox  and  a 
piece  of  exaggeration.  The  same  must  be 
said  of  a  large  part  of  Browning.  The  New 
Testament  is  full  of  such  paradoxes  of  exag- 
geration, like  the  parable  of  the  unjust  stew- 
ard, the  rich  man's  chance  for  heaven,  the 
wedding  garment;  but  in  these,  the  truth  is 
apparent,  —  we  are  not  betrayed.  In  Brown- 
ing's paradoxes  we  are  often  led  on  and 
involved  in  an  emotion  over  some  situation 
which  does  not  honestly  call  for  the  emotion. 

The  most  noble  quality  in  Browning  is 
his  temper.  He  does  not  proceed,  as  libera- 
tors generally  do,  by  railing  and  pulling 
down.  He  builds  up ;  he  is  positive,  not 
197 


ROBERT    BROWNING 

negative.  He  is  less  bitter  than  Christianity 
itself. 

While  there  is  no  more  doubt  as  to  the 
permanent  value  of  the  content  of  Browning 
than  of  the  value  of  the  spiritual  truths  of  the 
New  Testament,  there  is  very  little  likelihood 
that  his  poems  will  be  understood  in  the  re- 
mote future.  At  present,  they  are  following 
the  waves  of  influence  of  the  education  which 
they  correct.  They  are  built  like  Palladio's 
Theatre  at  Vicenza,  where  the  perspective 
converges  toward  a  single  seat.  In  order  to 
be  subject  to  the  illusion,  the  spectator  must 
occupy  the  duke's  place.  The  colors  are 
dropping  from  the  poems  already.  The  fee- 
blest of  them  lose  it  first.  There  was  a  steady 
falling  off  in  power  accompanied  by  a  con- 
stant increase  in  his  peculiarities  during  the 
last  twenty  years  of  his  life,  and  we  may 
make  some  surmise  as  to  how  Balaustion's 
Adventure  will  strike  posterity  by  reading 
Parleyings  with  Certain  People. 

The  distinctions  between  Browning's  char- 
acters —  which  to  us  are  so  vivid  —  will  to 
others  seem  less  so.  Paracelsus  and  Rabbi 
Ben  Ezra,  Lippo  Lippi,  Karshish,  Capon- 
sacchi,  and  Ferishtah  will  all  appear  to  be 
run  in  the  same  mould.  They  will  seem  to  be 
the  thinnest  disguises  which  a  poet  ever  as- 
198 


ROBERT    BROWNING 

sumed.  The  lack  of  the  dramatic  element  in 
Browning  —  a  lack  which  is  concealed  from 
us  by  our  intense  sympathy  for  him  and  by  his 
fondness  for  the  trappings  of  the  drama  —  will 
be  apparent  to  the  after-comers.  They  will 
say  that  all  the  characters  in  The  Blot  on 
the  'Scutcheon  take  essentially  the  same 
view  of  the  catastrophe  of  the  play;  that 
Pippa  and  Pompilia  and  Phene  are  the  same 
person  in  the  same  state  of  mind.  In  fact, 
the  family  likeness  is  great.  They  will  say 
that  the  philosophic  monologues  are  repeti- 
tions of  each  other.  It  cannot  be  denied 
that  there  is  much  repetition,  —  much  thresh- 
ing out  of  old  straw.  Those  who  have  read 
Browning  for  years  and  are  used  to  the  mon- 
ologues are  better  pleased  to  find  the  old 
ideas  than  new  ones,  which  they  could  not 
understand  so  readily.  When  the  later 
Browning  takes  us  on  one  of  those  long 
afternoon  rambles  through  his  mind,  —  over 
moor  and  fen,  through  jungle,  down  preci- 
pice, past  cataract,  —  we  know  just  where  we 
are  coming  out  in  the  end.  We  know  the 
place  better  than  he  did  himself.  Nor  will 
posterity  like  Browning's  manners,  —  the  dig 
in  the  ribs,  the  personal  application,  and 
de  te  fabula  of  most  of  his  talking.  These 
unpleasant  things  are  part  of  his  success  with 
199 


ROBERT    BROWNING 

us  to  whom  he  means  life,  not  art.  Posterity 
will  want  only  art.  We  needed  doctrine.  If 
he  had  not  preached,  we  would  not  have  lis- 
tened to  him.  But  posterity  evades  the 
preachers  and  accepts  only  singers.  Pos- 
terity is  so  dainty  that  it  lives  on  nothing  but 
choice  morsels.  It  will  cull  such  out  of  the 
body  of  Browning  as  the  anthologists  are 
beginning  to  do  already,  and  will  leave  the 
great  mass  of  him  to  be  rediscovered  from 
time  to  time  by  belated  sufferers  from  the 
philosophy  of  the  nineteenth  century. 

There  is  a  class  of  persons  who  claim  for 
Browning  that  his  verse  is  really  good  verse, 
and  that  he  was  a  master  of  euphony.  This 
cannot  be  admitted  except  as  to  particular 
instances  in  which  his  success  is  due  to  his 
conformity  to  law,  not  to  his  violation  of  it. 

The  rules  of  verse  in  English  are  merely  a 
body  of  custom  which  has  grown  up  uncon- 
sciously, and  most  of  which  rests  upon  some 
simple  requirement  of  the  ear. 

In  speaking  of  the  power  of  poetry  we  are 
dealing  with  what  is  essentially  a  mystery,  the 
outcome  of  infinitely  subtle,  numerous,  and 
complex  forces. 

The  rhythm  of  versification  seems  to  serve 
the  purpose  of  a  prompter.  It  lets  us  know  in 
200 


ROBERT    BROWNING 

advance  just  what  syllables  are  to  receive  the 
emphasis  which  shall  make  the  sense  clear. 
There  are  many  lines  in  poetry  which  become 
obscure  the  instant  they  are  written  in  prose, 
and  probably  the  advantages  of  poetry  over 
prose,  or,  to  express  it  modestly,  the  excuse 
for  poetry  at  all,  is  that  the  form  facilitates 
the  comprehension  of  the  matter.  Rhyme  is 
itself  an  indication  that  a  turning-point  has 
been  reached.  It  punctuates  and  sets  off  the 
sense,  and  relieves  our  attention  from  the 
strain  of  suspended  interest.  All  of  the  arti- 
fices of  poetical  form  seem  designed  to  a  like 
end.  Naturalness  of  speech  is  somewhat  sacri- 
ficed, but  we  gain  by  the  sacrifice  a  certain  uni- 
formity of  speech  which  rests  and  exhilarates. 
We  need  not,  for  the  present,  examine  the 
question  of  euphony  any  further,  nor  ask 
whether  euphony  be  not  a  positive  element 
in  verse,  —  an  element  which  belongs  to 
music. 

The  negative  advantages  of  poetry  over 
prose  are  probably  sufficient  to  account  for 
most  of  its  power.  A  few  more  considerations 
of  the  same  negative  nature,  and  which  affect 
the  vividness  of  either  prose  or  verse,  may  be 
touched  upon  by  way  of  preface  to  the  inquiry, 
why  Browning  is  hard  to  understand  and  why 
his  verse  is  bad. 

201 


ROBERT    BROWNING 

Every  one  is  more  at  ease  in  his  mind  when 
he  reads  a  language  which  observes  the  ordi- 
nary rules  of  grammar,  proceeds  by  means  of 
sentences  having  subjects  and  predicates,  and 
of  which  the  adjectives  and  adverbs  fall  easily 
into  place.  A  doubt  about  the  grammar  is  a 
doubt  about  the  sense.  And  this  is  so  true 
that  sometimes  when  our  fears  are  allayed 
by  faultless  grammar  we  may  read  absolute 
nonsense  with  satisfaction.  We  sometimes 
hear  it  stated  as  a  bitter  epigram,  that  poetry 
is  likely  to  endure  just  in  proportion  as  the 
form  of  it  is  superior  to  the  content.  As  to 
the  "  inferiority  "  of  the  content,  a  moment's 
reflection  shows  that  the  ideas  and  feelings 
which  prevail  from  age  to  age,  and  in  which 
we  may  expect  posterity  to  delight,  are  in 
their  nature,  and  of  necessity,  commonplace. 
And  if  by  "  superiority  of  form  "  it  is  meant 
that  these  ideas  shall  be  conveyed  in  flowing 
metres,  —  in  words  which  are  easy  to  pro- 
nounce, put  together  according  to  the  rules 
of  grammar,  and  largely  drawn  from  the  vul- 
gar tongue,  —  we  need  not  wonder  that  pos- 
terity should  enjoy  it.  In  fact,  it  is  just  such 
verse  as  this  which  survives  from  age  to  age. 

Browning  possesses  one  superlative  excel- 
lence, and  it  is  upon  this  that  he  relies.     It  is 
upon  this  that  he  has  emerged  and  attacked 
202 


ROBERT    BROWNING 

the  heart  of  man.  It  is  upon  this  that  he 
may  possibly  fight  his  way  down  to  posterity 
and  live  like  a  fire  forever  in  the  bosom  of 
mankind. 

His  language  is  the  language  of  common 
speech ;  his  force,  the  immediate  force  of  life. 
His  language  makes  no  compromises  of  any 
sort.  It  is  not  subdued  to  form.  The  em- 
phasis demanded  by  the  sense  is  very  often 
not  the  emphasis  demanded  by  the  metre. 
He  cuts  off  his  words  and  forces  them  ruth- 
lessly into  lines  as  a  giant  might  force  his 
limbs  into  the  armor  of  a  mortal.  The  joints 
and  members  of  the  speech  fall  in  the  wrong 
places  and  have  no  relation  to  the  joints  and 
members  of  the  metre. 

He  writes  like  a  lion  devouring  an  antelope. 
He  rends  his  subject,  breaks  its  bones,  and 
tears  out  the  heart  of  it.  He  is  not  made 
more,  but  less,  comprehensible  by  the  verse- 
forms  in  which  he  writes.  The  sign-posts  of 
the  metre  lead  us  astray.  He  would  be  easier 
to  understand  if  his  poems  were  printed  in 
the  form  of  prose.  That  is  the  reason  why 
Browning  becomes  easy  when  read  aloud ; 
for  in  reading  aloud  we  give  the  emphasis  of 
speech,  and  throw  over  all  effort  to  follow  the 
emphasis  of  the  metre.  This  is  also  the  reason 
why  Browning  is  so  unquotable  —  why  he  has 
203 


ROBERT    BROWNING 

made  so  little  effect  upon  the  language  —  why 
so  few  of  the  phrases  and  turns  of  thought 
and  metaphor  with  which  poets  enrich  a  lan- 
guage have  been  thrown  into  English  by  him. 
Let  a  man  who  does  not  read  poetry  take  up 
a  volume  of  Familiar  Quotations,  and  he  will 
find  page  after  page  of  lines  and  phrases 
which  he  knows  by  heart — from  Tennyson, 
Milton,  Wordsworth  —  things  made  familiar 
to  him  not  by  the  poets,  but  by  the  men 
whom  the  poets  educated,  and  who  adopted 
their  speech.  Of  Browning  he  will  know  not 
a  word.  And  yet  Browning's  poetry  is  full  of 
words  that  glow  and  smite,  and  which  have 
been  burnt  into  and  struck  into  the  most  influ- 
ential minds  of  the  last  fifty  years. 

But  Browning's  phrases  are  almost  impos- 
sible to  remember,  because  they  are  speech 
not  reduced  to  poetry.  They  do  not  sing, 
they  do  not  carry.  They  have  no  artificial 
buoys  to  float  them  in  our  memories. 

It  follows  from  this  uncompromising  nature 
of  Browning  that  when,  by  the  grace  of  inspi- 
ration, the  accents  of  his  speech  do  fall  into 
rhythm,  his  words  will  have  unimaginable 
sweetness.  The  music  is  so  much  a  part  of  the 
words  —  so  truly  spontaneous  —  that  other 
verse  seems  tame  and  manufactured  beside  his. 

Rhyme  is  generally  so  used  by  Browning 
204 


ROBERT    BROWNING 

as  not  to  subserve  the  true  function  of  rhyme. 
It  is  forced  into  a  sort  of  superficial  confor- 
mity, but  marks  no  epoch  in  the  verse.  The 
clusters  of  rhymes  are  clusters  only  to  the  eye 
and  not  to  the  ear.  The  necessity  of  rhyming 
leads  Browning  into  inversions,  —  into  expan- 
sions of  sentences  beyond  the  natural  close  of 
the  form,  —  into  every  sort  of  contortion. 
The  rhymes  clog  and  distress  the  sentences. 

As  to  grammar,  Browning  is  negligent. 
Some  of  his  most  eloquent  and  wonderful  pas- 
sages have  no  grammar  whatever.  In  Sor- 
dello  grammar  does  not  exist ;  and  the  want 
of  it,  the  strain  upon  the  mind  caused  by 
an  effort  to  make  coherent  sentences  out  of  a 
fleeting,  ever-changing,  iridescent  maze  of 
talk,  wearies  and  exasperates  the  reader.  Of 
course  no  one  but  a  school-master  desires 
that  poetry  shall  be  capable  of  being  parsed  ; 
but  every  one  has  a  right  to  expect  that  he 
shall  be  left  without  a  sense  of  grammatical 
deficiency. 

The  Invocation  in  The  Ring  and  the 
Book  is  one  of  the  most  beautiful  openings 
that  can  be  imagined. 

"  O  lyric  love,  half  angel  and  half  bird, 
And  all  a  wonder  and  a  wild  desire  — 
Boldest  of  hearts  that  ever  braved  the  sun, 
Took  sanctuary  within  the  holier  blue, 
205 


ROBERT    BROWNING 

And  sang  a  kindred  soul  out  to  his  face  — 

Yet  human  at  the  red-ripe  of  the  heart  — 

When  the  first  summons  from  the  darkling  earth 

Reached  thee  amid  thy  chambers,  blanched  their  blue, 

And  bared  them  of  the  glory  —  to  drop  down, 

To  toil  for  man,  to  suffer  or  to  die  — 

This  is  the  same  voice  :  can  thy  soul  know  change  ? 

Hail  then,  and  hearken  from  the  realms  of  help ! 

Never  may  I  commence  my  song,  my  due 

To  God  who  best  taught  song  by  gift  of  thee, 

Except  with  bent  head  and  beseeching  hand  — 

That  still,  despite  the  distance  and  the  dark 

What  was,  again  may  be  ;  some  interchange 

Of  grace,  some  splendor  once  thy  very  thought, 

Some  benediction  anciently  thy  smile  ;  — 

Never  conclude,  but  raising  hand  and  head 

Thither  where  eyes,  that  cannot  reach,  yet  yearn 

For  all  hope,  all  sustainment,  all  reward, 

Their  utmost  up  and  on  —  so  blessing  back 

In  those  thy  realms  of  help,  that  heaven  thy  home, 

Some  whiteness,  which,   I  judge,  thy  face   makes 

proud, 
Some  wanness  where,  I  think,  thy  foot  may  fall." 

These  sublime  lines  are  marred  by  appar- 
ent grammatical  obscurity.  The  face  of 
beauty  is  marred  when  one  of  the  eyes  seems 
sightless.  We  re-read  the  lines  to  see  if  we 
are  mistaken.  If  they  were  in  a  foreign 
language,  we  should  say  we  did  not  fully 
understand  them. 

In  the  dramatic  monologues,  as,  for  in- 
stance, in  The  Ring  and  the  Book  and  in  the 
206 


ROBERT    BROWNING 

innumerable  other  narratives  and  contempla- 
tions where  a  single  speaker  holds  forth,  we 
are  especially  called  upon  to  forget  grammar. 
The  speaker  relates  and  reflects,  —  pours  out 
his  ideas  in  the  order  in  which  they  occur  to 
him,  —  pursues  two  or  three  trains  of  thought 
at  the  same  time,  claims  every  license  which 
either  poetry  or  conversation  could  accord 
him.  The  effect  of  this  method  is  so  start- 
ling, that  when  we  are  vigorous  enough  to 
follow  the  sense,  we  forgive  all  faults  of  metre 
and  grammar,  and  feel  that  this  natural  Niag- 
ara of  speech  is  the  only  way  for  the  turbulent 
mind  of  man  to  get  complete  utterance.  We 
forget  that  it  is  possible  for  the  same  thing  to 
be  done,  and  yet  to  be  subdued,  and  stilled, 
and  charmed  into  music. 

Prospero  is  as  natural  and  as  individual  as 
Bishop  Blougram.  His  grammar  is  as  incom- 
plete, yet  we  do  not  note  it.  He  talks  to 
himself,  to  Miranda,  to  Ariel,  all  at  once, 
weaving  all  together  his  passions,  his  philoso- 
phy, his  narrative,  and  his  commands.  His 
reflections  are  as  profuse  and  as  metaphysical 
as  anything  in  Browning,  and  yet  all  is  clear, 
—  all  is  so  managed  that  it  lends  magic.  The 
characteristic  and  unfathomable  significance 
of  this  particular  character  Prospero  comes 
out  of  it. 

207 


ROBERT    BROWNING 

"  Prospero.      My    brother   and    thy   uncle,    called 
Antonio  — 
I  pray  thee  mark  me,  —  that  a  brother  should 
Be  so  perfidious  !  —  he  whom  next  thyself, 
Of  all  the  world  I  lov'd,  and  to  him  put 
The  manage  of  my  state ;  as  at  that  time 
Through  all  the  seignories  it  was  the  first, 
And  Prospero,  the  Prime  Duke,  being  so  reputed 
In  dignity  and  for  the  liberal  arts, 
Without  a  parallel :  those  being  all  my  study, 
The  government  I  cast  upon  my  brother, 
And  to  my  state  grew  stranger,  being  transported 
And  wrapped  in  secret  studies.     Thy  false  uncle  — 
Dost  thou  attend  me  ?  " 

It  is  unnecessary  to  give  examples  from 
Browning  of  defective  verse,  of  passages 
which  cannot  be  understood,  which  cannot 
be  construed,  which  cannot  be  parodied,  and 
which  can  scarcely  be  pronounced.  They 
are  mentioned  only  as  throwing  light  on 
Browning's  cast  of  mind  and  methods  of 
work.  His  inability  to  recast  and  correct  his 
work  cost  the  world  a  master.  He  seems  to 
have  been  condemned  to  create  at  white  heat 
and  to  stand  before  the  astonishing  draft, 
which  his  energy  had  flung  out,  powerless  to 
complete  it. 

We  have  a  few  examples  of  things  which 

came    forth  perfect,   but   many   of  even  the 

most  beautiful  and  most  original  of  the  shorter 

poems  are  marred  by  some  blotches  that  hurt 

208 


ROBERT    BROWNING 

us  and  which  one  feels  might  have  been  struck 
out  or  corrected  in  half  an  hour.  How  many 
of  the  poems  are  too  long !  It  is  not  that 
Browning  went  on  writing  after  he  had  com- 
pleted his  thought,  —  for  the  burst  of  beauty 
is  as  likely  to  come  at  the  end  as  at  the 
beginning,  —  but  that  his  thought  had  to 
unwind  itself  like  web  from  a  spider.  He 
could  not  command  it.  He  could  only  un- 
wind and  unwind. 

Pan  and  Luna  is  a  sketch,  as  luminous 
as  a  Correggio,  but  not  finished.  Caliban 
upon  Setebos,  on  the  other  hand,  shows  crea- 
tive genius,  beyond  all  modern  reach,  but 
flounders  and  drags  on  too  long.  In  the 
poems  which  he  revised,  as,  for  instance,  Herve 
Riel,  which  exists  in  two  or  more  forms,  the 
corrections  are  verbal,  and  were  evidently 
done  with  the  same  fierce  haste  with  which 
the  poems  were  written. 

We  must  not  for  an  instant  imagine  that 
Browning  was  indolent  or  indifferent;  it  is 
known  that  he  was  a  taskmaster  to  himself. 
But  he  could  not  write  other  than  he  did. 
When  the  music  came  and  the  verse  caught 
the  flame,  and  his  words  became  sweeter,  and 
his  thought  clearer,  then  he  could  sweep 
down  like  an  archangel  bringing  new  strains 
of  beauty  to  the  earth.  But  the  occasions 
14  209 


ROBERT    BROWNING 

when  he  did  this  are  a  handful  of  passages  in 
a  body  of  writing  as  large  as  the  Bible. 

Just  as  Browning  could  not  stop,  so  he 
found  it  hard  to  begin.  His  way  of  beginning 
is  to  seize  the  end  of  the  thread  just  where  he 
can,  and  write  down  the  first  sentence. 

"  She  should  never  have  looked  at  me, 
If  she  meant  I  should  not  love  her  !  " 

"  Water  your  damned  flowerpots,  do  —  " 

"  No  !  for  I  '11  save  it !    Seven  years  since." 

"  But  give  them  me,  the  mouth,  the  eyes,  the  brow !  " 

"  Fear  Death  ?  to  feel  the  fog  in  my  throat." 

Sometimes  his  verse  fell  into  coils  as  it 
came,  but  he  himself,  as  he  wrote  the  first 
line  of  a  poem,  never  knew  in  what  form  of 
verse  the  poem  would  come  forth.  Hence 
the  novel  figures  and  strange  counterpoint. 
Having  evolved  the  first  group  of  lines  at 
haphazard,  he  will  sometimes  repeat  the  form 
(a  very  complex  form,  perhaps,  which,  in 
order  to  have  any  organic  effect,  would  have 
to  be  tuned  to  the  ear  most  nicely),  and 
repeat  it  clumsily.  Individual  taste  must  be 
judge  of  his  success  in  these  experiments. 
Sometimes  the  ear  is  worried  by  an  attempt 
to  trace  the  logic  of  the  rhymes  which  are 
210 


ROBERT    BROWNING 

concealed  by  the  rough  jolting  of  the  metre. 
Sometimes  he  makes  no  attempt  to  repeat  the 
first  verse,  but  continues  in  irregular  improvi- 
sation. 

Browning  never  really  stoops  to  literature  * 
he  makes  perfunctory  obeisance  to  it.  The 
truth  is  that  Browning  is  expressed  by  his 
defects.  He  would  not  be  Robert  Browning 
without  them.  In  the  technical  part  of  his 
art,  as  well  as  in  his  spirit,  Browning  repre- 
sents a  reaction  of  a  violent  sort.  He  was 
too  great  an  artist  not  to  feel  that  his  viola- 
tions of  form  helped  him.  The  blemishes  in 
The  Grammarian's  Funeral  —  hoti's  busi- 
ness, the  enclitic  de  —  were  stimulants;  they 
heightened  his  effects.  They  helped  him 
make  clear  his  meaning,  that  life  is  greater 
than  art.  These  savageries  spoke  to  the 
hearts  of  men  tired  of  smoothness  and  plati- 
tude, and  who  were  relieved  by  just  such  a 
breaking  up  of  the  ice.  Men  loved  Browning 
not  only  for  what  he  was,  but  also  for  what  he 
was  not. 

These  blemishes  were,  under  the  circum- 
stances, and  for  a  limited  audience,  strokes  of 
art.  It  is  not  to  be  pretended  that,  even  from 
this  point  of  view,  they  were  always  success- 
ful, only  that  they  are  organic.  The  nine- 
teenth century  would  have  to  be  lived  over 
211 


ROBERT    BROWNING 

again  to  wipe  these  passages  out  of  Browning's 
poetry. 

In  that  century  he  stands  as  one  of  the 
great  men  of  England.  His  doctrines  are 
the  mere  effulgence  of  his  personality.  He 
himself  was  the  truth  which  he  taught.  His 
life  was  the  life  of  one  of  his  own  heroes ;  and 
in  the  close  of  his  life  —  by  a  coincidence 
which  is  not  sad,  but  full  of  meaning  —  may 
be  seen  one  of  those  apparent  paradoxes  in 
which  he  himself  delighted. 

Through  youth  and  manhood  Browning  rose 
like  a  planet  calmly  following  the  laws  of  his 
own  being.  From  time  to  time  he  put  forth 
his  volumes  which  the  world  did  not  under- 
stand. Neglect  caused  him  to  suffer,  but  not 
to  change.  It  was  not  until  his  work  was  all 
but  finished,  not  till  after  the  publication  of 
The  Ring  and  the  Book,  that  complete  rec- 
ognition came  to  him.  It  was  given  him  by 
men  and  women  who  had  been  in  the  nursery 
when  he  began  writing,  who  had  passed  their 
youth  with  his  minor  poems,  and  who  under- 
stood him. 

In  later  life  Browning's  powers  declined. 
The  torrent  of  feeling  could  no  longer  float 
the  raft  of  doctrine,  as  it  had  done  so  lightly 
and  for  so  long.  His  poems,  always  difficult, 
grew  dry  as  well. 

212 


ROBERT    BROWNING 

But  Browning  was  true  to  himself.  He  had 
all  his  life  loved  converse  with  men  and 
women,  and  still  enjoyed  it.  He  wrote  con- 
stantly and  to  his  uttermost.  It  was  not  for 
him  to  know  that  his  work  was  done.  He 
wrote  on  manfully  to  the  end,  showing, 
occasionally,  his  old  power,  and  always  his 
old  spirit.  And  on  his  death-bed  it  was  not 
only  his  doctrine,  but  his  life  that  blazed  out 
in  the  words :  — 

"  One  who  never  turned  his  back,  but  marched  breast 
forward, 
Never  doubted  clouds  would  break, 
Never  dreamed,  though  right  were  worsted,  wrong 

would  triumph. 
Held,  we  fall  to  rise  —  are  baffled  to  fight  better — 
Sleep  to  wake." 


"3 


ROBERT    LOUIS   STEVENSON 


ROBERT    LOUIS   STEVENSON 


In  the  early  eighties,  and  in  an  epoch  when 
the  ideals  of  George  Eliot  were  still  control- 
ling, the  figure  of  Stevenson  rose  with  a  sort 
of  radiance  as  a  writer  whose  sole  object  was 
to  entertain.  Most  of  the  great  novelists 
were  then  dead,  and  the  scientific  school  was 
in  the  ascendant.  Fiction  was  entering  upon 
its  death  grapple  with  sociology.  Stevenson 
came,  with  his  tales  of  adventure  and  intrigue, 
out-of-door  life  and  old-time  romance,  and  he 
recalled  to  every  reader  his  boyhood  and  the 
delights  of  his  earliest  reading.  We  had  for- 
gotten that  novels  could  be  amusing. 

Hence  it  is  that  the  great  public  not  only 
loves  Stevenson  as  a  writer,  but  regards  him 
with  a  certain  personal  gratitude.  There  was, 
moreover,  in  everything  he  wrote  an  engaging 
humorous  touch  which  made  friends  for  him 
everywhere,  and  excited  an  interest  in  his 
fragile  and  somewhat  elusive  personality  sup- 
plementary to  the  appreciation  of  his  books 
as  literature.  Toward  the  end  of  his  life 
217 


ROBERT    LOUIS    STEVENSON 

both  he  and  the  public  discovered  this,  and 
his  railleries  or  sermons  took  on  the  form 
of  personal  talk. 

Beneath  these  matters  lay  the  fact,  known 
to  all,  that  the  man  was  fighting  a  losing 
battle  against  mortal  sickness,  and  that 
practically  the  whole  of  his  work  was  done 
under  conditions  which  made  any  produc- 
tivity seem  a  miracle.  The  heroic  invalid 
was  seen  through  all  his  books,  still  sitting 
before  his  desk  or  on  his  bed,  turning  out 
with  unabated  courage,  with  increasing  ability, 
volume  after  volume  of  gayety,  of  boys'  story- 
book, and  of  tragic  romance. 

There  is  enough  in  this  record  to  explain 
the  popularity,  running  at  times  into  hero- 
worship  and  at  times  into  drawing-room 
fatuity,  which  makes  Stevenson  and  his  work 
a  fair  subject  for  study.  It  is  not  impossible 
that  a  man  who  met  certain  needs  of  the 
times  so  fully,  and  whom  large  classes  of 
people  sprang  forward  to  welcome,  may  in 
some  particulars  give  a  clew  to  the  age. 

Any  description  of  Stevenson's  books  is 
unnecessary.  We  have  all  read  them  too 
recently  to  need  a  prompter.  The  high 
spirits  and  elfin  humor  which  play  about 
and  support  every  work  justifies  them  all. 
One  of  his  books,  The  Child's  Garden  of 
218 


ROBERT  LOUIS   STEVENSON 

Verses,  is  different  in  kind  from  the  rest.  It 
has  no  prototype,  and  is  by  far  the  most 
original  thing  that  he  did.  The  unsophisti- 
cated and  gay  little  volume  is  a  work  of  the 
greatest  value.  Stevenson  seems  to  have 
remembered  the  impressions  of  his  childhood 
with  accuracy,  and  he  has  recorded  them 
without  affectation,  without  sentimentality, 
without  exaggeration.  In  depicting  children 
he  draws  from  life.  He  is  at  home  in  the 
mysteries  of  their  play  and  in  the  inconse- 
quent operations  of  their  minds,  in  the  golden 
haze  of  impressions  in  which  they  live.  The 
references  to  children  in  his  essays  and  books 
show  the  same  understanding  and  sympathy. 
There  is  more  than  mere  literary  charm  in 
what  he  says  here.  In  the  matter  of  child- 
hood we  must  study  him  with  respect.  He 
is  an  authority. 

The  slight  but  serious  studies  in  biography 
— alas  !  too  few  —  which  Stevenson  published, 
ought  also  to  be  mentioned,  because  their 
merit  is  apt  to  be  overlooked  by  the  admirers 
of  his  more  ambitious  works.  His  under- 
standing of  two  such  opposite  types  of  men 
as  Burns  and  Thoreau  is  notable,  and  no  less 
notable  are  the  courage,  truth,  and  penetra- 
tion with  which  he  dealt  with  them.  His 
essay  on  Burns  is  the  most  comprehensible 
219 


ROBERT   LOUIS   STEVENSON 

word  ever  said  of  Burns.     It  makes  us  love 
Burns  less,  but  understand  him  more. 

The  problems  suggested  by  Stevenson  are 
more  important  than  his  work  itself.  We 
have  in  him  that  rare  combination,  —  a  man 
whose  theories  and  whose  practice  are  of  a 
piece.  His  doctrines  are  the  mere  descrip- 
tion of  his  own  state  of  mind  while  at 
work. 

The  quality  which  every  one  will  agree  in 
conceding  to  Stevenson  is  lightness  of  touch. 
This  quality  is  a  result  of  his  extreme  lucidity, 
not  only  of  thought,  but  of  intention.  We 
know  what  he  means,  and  we  are  sure  that  we 
grasp  his  whole  meaning  at  the  first  reading. 
Whether  he  be  writing  a  tale  of  travel  or 
humorous  essay,  a  novel  of  adventure,  a  story 
of  horror,  a  morality,  or  a  fable ;  in  whatever 
key  he  plays,  —  and  he  seems  to  have  taken 
delight  in  showing  mastery  in  many,  —  the 
reader  feels  safe  in  his  hands,  and  knows  that 
no  false  note  will  be  struck.  His  work  makes 
no  demands  upon  the  attention.  It  is  food  so 
thoroughly  peptonized  that  it  is  digested  as 
soon  as  swallowed  and  leaves  us  exhilarated 
rather  than  fed. 

Writing  was  to   him   an   art,   and   almost 
everything  that  he  has  written  has  a  little 
the  air   of  being  a   tour  de  force.     Steven- 
220 


ROBERT  LOUIS   STEVENSON 

son's  books  and  essays  were  generally  bril- 
liant imitations  of  established  things,  done 
somewhat  in  the  spirit  of  an  expert  in  bil- 
liards. In  short,  Stevenson  is  the  most  ex- 
traordinary mimic  that  has  ever  appeared  in 
literature. 

That  is  the  reason  why  he  has  been  so 
much  praised  for  his  style.  When  we  say  of 
a  new  thing  that  it  "  has  style,"  we  mean  that 
it  is  done  as  we  have  seen  things  done 
before.  Bunyan,  De  Foe,  or  Charles  Lamb 
were  to  their  contemporaries  men  without 
style.  The  English,  to  this  day,  complain 
of  Emerson  that  he  has  no  style. 

If  a  man  writes  as  he  talks,  he  will  be 
thought  to  have  no  style,  until  people  get 
used  to  him,  for  literature  means  what  has 
been  written.  As  soon  as  a  writer  is  estab- 
lished, his  manner  of  writing  is  adopted  by 
the  literary  conscience  of  the  times,  and  you 
may  follow  him  and  still  have  "  style."  You 
may  to-day  imitate  George  Meredith,  and 
people,  without  knowing  exactly  why  they  do 
it,  will  concede  you  "  style."  Style  means 
tradition. 

When  Stevenson,  writing  from  Samoa  in  the 

agony  of  his  South  Seas   (a  book  he  could 

not  write  because  he  had  no  paradigm  and 

original  to  copy  from),  says  that  he  longs  for 

221 


ROBERT   LOUIS   STEVENSON 

a  "  moment  of  style,"  he  means  that  he 
wishes  there  would  come  floating  through 
his  head  a  memory  of  some  other  man's  way 
of  writing  to  which  he  could  modulate  his 
sentences. 

It  is  no  secret  that  Stevenson  in  early  life 
spent  much  time  in  imitating  the  styles  of 
various  authors,  for  he  has  himself  described 
the  manner  in  which  he  went  to  work  to  fit 
himself  for  his  career  as  a  writer.  His  boyish 
ambition  led  him  to  employ  perfectly  phenom- 
enal diligence  in  cultivating  a  perfectly  phe- 
nomenal talent  for  imitation. 

There  was  probably  no  fault  in  Stevenson's 
theory  as  to  how  a  man  should  learn  to  write, 
and  as  to  the  discipline  he  must  undergo. 
Almost  all  the  greatest  artists  have  shown, 
in  their  early  work,  traces  of  their  early 
masters.  These  they  outgrow.  "  For  as  this 
temple  waxes,  the  inward  service  of  the  mind 
and  soul  grows  wide  withal ;  "  and  an  author's 
own  style  breaks  through  the  coverings  of  his 
education,  as  a  hyacinth  breaks  from  the 
bulb.  It  is  noticeable,  too,  that  the  early  and 
imitative  work  of  great  men  generally  belongs 
to  a  particular  school  to  which  their  maturity 
bears  a  logical  relation.  They  do  not  cruise 
about  in  search  of  a  style  or  vehicle,  trying 
all  and  picking  up  hints  here  and  there,  but 
222 


ROBERT   LOUIS   STEVENSON 

they  fall  incidentally  and  genuinely  under 
influences  which  move  them  and  afterwards 
qualify  their  original  work. 

With  Stevenson  it  was  different;  for  he 
went  in  search  of  a  style  as  Coelebs  in  search 
of  a  wife.  He  was  an  eclectic  by  nature. 
He  became  a  remarkable,  if  not  a  unique  phe- 
nomenon,—  for  he  never  grew  up.  Whether 
or  not  there  was  some  obscure  connection 
between  his  bodily  troubles  and  the  arrest  of 
his  intellectual  development,  it  is  certain  that 
Stevenson  remained  a  boy  till  the  day  of  his 
death. 

The  boy  was  the  creature  in  the  universe 
whom  Stevenson  best  understood.  Let  us 
remember  how  a  boy  feels  about  art,  and  why 
he  feels  so.  The  intellect  is  developed  in  the 
child  with  such  astonishing  rapidity  that  long 
before  physical  maturity  its  head  is  filled 
with  ten  thousand  things  learned  from  books 
and  not  drawn  directly  from  real  life. 

The  form  and  setting  in  which  the  boy 
learns  of  matters  sticks  in  the  mind  as  a  part 
of  the  matters  themselves.  He  cannot  dis- 
entangle what  is  conventional  from  what  is 
original,  because  he  has  not  yet  a  first-hand 
acquaintance  with  life  by  which  to  interpret. 

Every  schoolboy   of  talent   writes    essays 
in  the  style  of  Addison,  because  he  is  taught 
223 


ROBERT   LOUIS   STEVENSON 

that  this  is  the  correct  way  of  writing.  He 
has  no  means  of  knowing  that  in  writing  in 
this  manner  he  is  using  his  mind  in  a  very 
peculiar  and  artificial  way,  —  a  way  entirely 
foreign  to  Addison  himself;  and  that  he  is 
really  striving  not  so  much  to  say  something 
himself  as  to  reproduce  an  effect. 

There  is  one  thing  which  young  people  do 
not  know,  and  which  they  find  out  during  the 
process  of  growing  up,  —  and  that  is  that 
good  things  in  art  have  been  done  by  men 
whose  entire  attention  was  absorbed  in  an 
attempt  to  tell  the  truth,  and  who  have 
been  chiefly  marked  by  a  deep  unconscious- 
ness. 

To  a  boy,  the  great  artists  of  the  world  are 
a  lot  of  necromancers,  whose  enchantments 
can  perhaps  be  stolen  and  used  again.  To  a 
man,  they  are  a  lot  of  human  beings,  and  their 
works  are  parts  of  them.  Their  works  are 
their  hands  and  their  feet,  their  organs,  di- 
mensions, senses,  affections,  passions.  To  a 
man,  it  is  as  absurd  to  imitate  the  manner  of 
Dean  Swift  in  writing  as  it  would  be  to  imi- 
tate the  manner  of  Dr.  Johnson  in  eating. 
But  Stevenson  was  not  a  man,  he  was  a 
boy ;  or,  to  speak  more  accurately,  the  atti- 
tude of  his  mind  towards  his  work  remained 
unaltered  from  boyhood  till  death,  though 
224 


ROBERT  LOUIS   STEVENSON 

his  practice  and  experiment  gave  him,  as  he 
grew  older,  a  greater  mastery  over  his  mate- 
rials. It  is  in  this  attitude  of  Stevenson's 
mind  toward  his  own  work  that  we  must 
search  for  the  heart  of  his  mystery. 

He  conceived  of  himself  as  "  an  artist," 
and  of  his  writings  as  performances.  As  a 
consequence,  there  is  an  undertone  of  insin- 
cerity in  almost  everything  which  he  has 
written.  His  attention  is  never  wholly  ab- 
sorbed in  his  work,  but  is  greatly  taken  up 
with  the  notion  of  how  each  stroke  of  it  is 
going  to  appear. 

We  have  all  experienced,  while  reading  his 
books,  a  certain  undefmable  suspicion  which 
interferes  with  the  enjoyment  of  some  people, 
and  enhances  that  of  others.  It  is  not  so 
much  the  cream-tarts  themselves  that  we  sus- 
pect, as  the  motive  of  the  giver. 

"  I  am  in  the  habit,"  said  Prince  Florizel, 
"  of  looking  not  so  much  to  the  nature  of  the 
gift  as  to  the  spirit  in  which  it  is  offered." 

"  The  spirit,  sir,"  returned  the  young  man, 
with  another  bow,  "  is  one  of  mockery." 

This  doubt  about  Stevenson's  truth  and 
candor  is  one  of  the  results  of  the  artistic 
doctrines  which  he  professed  and  practised. 
He  himself  regards  his  work  as  a  toy;  and 
how  can  we  do  otherwise? 
15  225 


ROBERT   LOUIS   STEVENSON 

It  seems  to  be  a  law  of  psychology  that  the 
only  way  in  which  the  truth  can  be  strongly 
told  is  in  the  course  of  a  search  for  truth. 
The  moment  a  man  strives  after  some  "  ef- 
fect," he  disqualifies  himself  from  making 
that  effect;  for  he  draws  the  interest  of  his 
audience  to  the  same  matters  that  occupy  his 
own  mind ;  namely,  upon  his  experiment  and 
his  efforts.  It  is  only  when  a  man  is  say- 
ing something  that  he  believes  is  obviously 
and  eternally  true,  that  he  can  communicate 
spiritual  things. 

Ultimately  speaking,  the  vice  of  Steven- 
son's theories  about  art  is  that  they  call  for  a 
self-surrender  by  the  artist  of  his  own  mind 
to  the  pleasure  of  others,  for  a  subordination 
of  himself  to  the  production  of  this  "  effect " 
in  the  mind  of  another.  They  degrade  and 
belittle  him.  Let  Stevenson  speak  for  him- 
self; the  thought  contained  in  the  follow- 
ing passage  is  found  in  a  hundred  places 
in  his  writings  and  dominated  his  artistic 
life.     . 

"  The  French  have  a  romantic  evasion  for 
one  employment,  and  call  its  practitioners  the 
Daughters  of  Joy.  The  artist  is  of  the  same 
family,  he  is  of  the  Sons  of  Joy,  chose  his 
trade  to  please  himself,  gains  his  livelihood 
by  pleasing  others,  and  has  parted  with 
226 


ROBERT   LOUIS   STEVENSON 

something  of  the  sterner  dignity  of  men. 
The  poor  Daughter  of  Joy  carrying  her 
smiles  and  her  finery  quite  unregarded 
through  the  crowd,  makes  a  figure  which  it 
is  impossible  to  recall  without  a  wounding 
pity.  She  is  the  type  of  the  unsuccessful 
artist." 

These  are  the  doctrines  and  beliefs  which, 
time  out  of  mind,  have  brought  the  arts  into 
contempt.  They  are  as  injurious  as  they  are 
false,  and  they  will  checkmate  the  progress 
of  any  man  or  of  any  people  that  believes 
them.  They  corrupt  and  menace  not  merely 
the  fine  arts,  but  every  other  form  of  human 
expression  in  an  equal  degree.  They  are  as 
insulting  to  the  comic  actor  as  they  are  to 
Michael  Angelo,  for  the  truth  and  beauty  of 
low  comedy  are  as  dignified,  and  require  of 
the  artist  the  same  primary  passion  for  life 
for  its  own  sake,  as  the  truth  and  beauty  of 
The  Divine  Comedy.  The  doctrines  are  the 
outcome  of  an  Alexandrine  age.  After  art 
has  once  learnt  to  draw  its  inspiration  directly 
from  life  and  has  produced  some  master- 
pieces, then  imitations  begin  to  creep  in. 
That  Stevenson's  doctrines  tend  to  produce 
imitative  work  is  obvious.  If  the  artist  is  a 
fisher  of  men,  then  we  must  examine  the 
works  of  those  who  have  known  how  to  bait 
227 


ROBERT  LOUIS   STEVENSON 

their  hooks:  in  fiction, —  De  Foe,  Fielding, 
Walter  Scott,  Dumas,  Balzac. 

To  a  study  of  these  men,  Stevenson  had, 
as  we  have  seen,  devoted  the  most  plastic 
years  of  his  life.  The  style  and  even  the 
mannerisms  of  each  of  them,  he  had  trained 
himself  to  reproduce.  One  can  almost  write 
their  names  across  his  pages  and  assign  each 
as  a  presiding  genius  over  a  share  of  his 
work.  Not  that  Stevenson  purloined  or 
adopted  in  a  mean  spirit,  and  out  of  vanity. 
His  enthusiasm  was  at  the  bottom  of  all  he 
did.  He  was  well  read  in  the  belles  lettres 
of  England  and  the  romanticists  of  France. 
These  books  were  his  bible.  He  was  steeped 
in  the  stage-land  and  cloud-land  of  senti- 
mental literature.  From  time  to  time,  he 
emerged,  trailing  clouds  of  glory  and  shower- 
ing sparkles  from  his  hands. 

A  close  inspection  shows  his  clouds  and 
sparkles  to  be  stage  properties ;  but  Steven- 
son did  not  know  it.  The  public  not  only 
does  not  know  it,  but  does  not  care  whether 
it  be  so  or  not.  The  doughty  old  novel 
readers  who  knew  their  Scott  and  Ainsworth 
and  Wilkie  Collins  and  Charles  Reade,  their 
Dumas  and  their  Cooper,  were  the  very 
people  whose  hearts  were  warmed  by  Stev- 
enson. If  you  cross-question  one  of  these, 
228 


ROBERT  LOUIS    STEVENSON 

he  will  admit  that  Stevenson  is  after  all  a 
revival,  an  echo,  an  after-glow  of  the  roman- 
tic movement,  and  that  he  brought  nothing 
new.  He  will  scout  any  comparison  between 
Stevenson  and  his  old  favorites,  but  he  is 
ready  enough  to  take  Stevenson  for  what  he 
is  worth.  The  most  casual  reader  recognizes 
a  whole  department  of  Stevenson's  work  as 
competing  in  a  general  way  with  Walter 
Scott. 

Kidnapped  is  a  romantic  fragment  whose 
original  is  to  be  found  in  the  Scotch  scenes 
of  the  Waverley  Novels.  An  incident  near 
the  beginning  of  it,  the  curse  of  Jennet 
Clouston  upon  the  House  of  Shaws,  is  trans- 
ferred from  Guy  Mannering  almost  literally. 
But  the  curse  of  Meg  Merrilies  in  Guy  Man- 
nering—  which  is  one  of  the  most  surprising 
and  powerful  scenes  Scott  ever  wrote — is  an 
organic  part  of  the  story,  whereas  the  tran- 
script is  a  thing  stuck  in  for  effect,  and  the 
curse  is  put  in  the  mouth  of  an  old  woman 
whose  connection  with  the  plot  is  apocryphal, 
and  who  never  appears  again. 

Treasure  Island  is  a  piece  of  astounding 
ingenuity,  in  which  the  manner  is  taken  from 
Robinson  Crusoe,  and  the  plot  belongs  to 
the  era  of  the  detective  story.  The  Treas- 
ure of  Franchard  is  a  French  farce  or  light 
229 


ROBERT  LOUIS  STEVENSON 

comedy  of  bourgeois  life,  of  a  type  already  a 
little  old-fashioned,  but  perfectly  authentic. 
The  tone,  the  mise-en-schic,  the  wit,  the  char- 
acter-drawing, the  very  language,  are  all  so 
marvellously  reproduced  from  the  French, 
that  we  almost  see  the  footlights  while  we 
read  it. 

The  Sieur  de  Maletroit's  Door  embodies 
the  same  idea  as  a  well-known  French  play 
in  verse  and  in  one  act.  The  version  of 
Stevenson  is  like  an  exquisite  water-color 
copy,  almost  as  good  as  the  original. 

The  Isle  of  Voices  is  the  production  of  a 
man  of  genius.  No  one  can  too  much  admire 
the  legerdemain  of  the  magician  who  could 
produce  this  thing ;  for  it  is  a  story  out  of 
the  Arabian  Nights,  told  with  a  perfection  of 
mannerism,  a  reproduction  of  the  English  in 
which  the  later  translators  of  the  Arabian 
Nights  have  seen  fit  to  deal,  a  simulation  of 
the  movement  and  detail  of  the  Eastern  stories 
which  fairly  takes  our  breath  away. 

It  is  "  ask  and  have  "  with  this  man.  Like 
Mephistopheles  in  the  Raths-Keller,  he  gives 
us  what  vintage  we  call  for.  Olalla  is  an 
instance  in  point.  Any  one  familiar  with 
Merim6e's  stones  will  smile  at  the  nai'vet£ 
with  which  Stevenson  has  taken  the  lead- 
ing idea  of  Lokis,  and  surrounded  it  with 
230 


ROBERT   LOUIS   STEVENSON 

the  Spanish  sunshine  of  Carmen.  But  we 
have  "  fables,"  moralities,  and  psychology, 
Jekyl  and  Hyde,  Markheim,  and  Will  O'  the 
Mill.  We  have  the  pasteboard  feudal  style, 
in  which  people  say,  "  Ye  can  go,  boy ;  for  I 
will  keep  your  good  friend  and  my  good  gossip 
company  till  curfew —  aye,  and  by  St.  Mary  till 
the  Sun  get  up  again."  We  must  have  opera 
bouffe,  as  in  Prince  Otto ;  melodrama,  as  in 
The  Pavilion  on  the  Links;  the  essay  of 
almost  biblical  solemnity  in  the  manner  of 
Sir  Thomas  Browne,  the  essay  of  charming 
humor  in  the  style  of  Charles  Lamb,  the 
essay  of  introspection  and  egotism  in  the 
style  of  Montaigne. 

Let  us  not  for  a  moment  imagine  that 
Stevenson  has  stolen  these  things  and  is  try- 
ing to  palm  them  off  on  us  as  his  own.  He 
has  absorbed  them.  He  does  not  know  their 
origin.  He  gives  them  out  again  in  joy  and 
in  good  faith  with  zest  and  amusement  and 
in  the  excitement  of  a  new  discovery. 

If  all  these  many  echoing  voices  do  not 
always  ring  accurately  true,  yet  their  number 
is  inordinate  and  remarkable.  They  will  not 
bear  an  immediate  comparison  with  their 
originals ;  but  we  may  be  sure  that  the  vin- 
tages of  Mephistopheles  would  not  have  stood 
a  comparison  with  real  wine. 
231 


ROBERT   LOUIS   STEVENSON 

One  of  the  books  which  established  Steven- 
son's fame  was  the  New  Arabian  Nights. 
The  series  of  tales  about  Prince  Florizel  of 
Bohemia  was  a  brilliant,  original,  and  alto- 
gether delightful  departure  in  light  literature. 
The  stories  are  a  frank  and  wholesome  cari- 
cature of  the  French  detective  story.  They 
are  legitimate  pieces  of  literature  because 
they  are  burlesque,  and  because  the  smiling 
Mephistopheles  who  lurks  everywhere  in  the 
pages  of  Stevenson  is  for  this  time  the 
acknowledged  showman  of  the  piece. 

A  burlesque  is  always  an  imitation  shown 
off  by  the  foil  of  some  incongruous  setting. 
The  setting  in  this  case  Stevenson  found 
about  him  in  the  omnibuses,  the  clubs,  and  the 
railways  of  sordid  and  complicated  London. 

In  this  early  book  Stevenson  seems  to  have 
stumbled  upon  the  true  employment  of  his 
powers  without  realizing  the  treasure  trove, 
for  he  hardly  returned  to  the  field  of  humor, 
for  which  his  gifts  most  happily  fitted  him. 
As  a  writer  of  burlesque  he  truly  expresses 
himself.     He  is  full  of  genuine  fun. 

The  fantastic  is  half  brother  to  the  bur- 
lesque. Each  implies  some  original  as  a  point 
of  departure,  and  as  a  scheme  for  treatment 
some  framework  upon  which  the  author's  wit 
and  fancy  shall  be  lavished. 
232 


ROBERT   LOUIS   STEVENSON 

It  is  in  the  region  of  the  fantastic  that 
Stevenson  loved  to  wander,  and  it  is  in  this 
direction  that  he  expended  his  marvellous 
ingenuity.  His  fairy  tales  and  arabesques 
must  be  read  as  they  were  written,  in  the 
humor  of  forty  fancies  and  without  any  heavy- 
fisted  intention  of  getting  new  ideas  about 
life.  It  will  be  said  that  the  defect  of  Steven- 
son is  expressed  by  these  very  qualities,  fancy 
and  ingenuity,  because  they  are  contradictory, 
and  the  second  destroys  the  first.  Be  this  as 
it  may,  there  are  many  people  whose  pleasure 
is  not  spoiled  by  elaboration  and  filigree 
work. 

Our  ability  to  follow  Stevenson  in  his  fan- 
tasias depends  very  largely  upon  how  far  our 
imaginations  and  our  sentimental  interests  are 
dissociated  from  our  interest  in  real  life. 
Commonplace  and  common-sense  people, 
whose  emotional  natures  are  not  strongly  at 
play  in  the  conduct  of  their  daily  lives,  have 
a  fund  of  unexpended  mental  activity,  of  a 
very  low  degree  of  energy,  which  delights  to 
be  occupied  with  the  unreal  and  the  impos- 
sible. More  than  this,  any  mind  which  is 
daily  occupied  in  an  attempt  to  grasp  some 
of  the  true  relations  governing  things  as  they 
are,  finds  its  natural  relaxation  in  the  contem- 
plation of  things  as  they  are  not,  —  things  as 
233 


ROBERT  LOUIS   STEVENSON 

they  cannot  be.  There  is  probably  no  one 
who  will  not  find  himself  thoroughly  enjoy- 
ing the  fantastic,  if  he  be  mentally  fatigued 
enough.  Hence  the  justification  of  a  whole 
branch  of  Stevenson's  work. 

After  every  detraction  has  been  allowed  for, 
there  remain  certain  books  of  Stevenson's  of 
an  extraordinary  and  peculiar  merit,  books 
which  can  hardly  be  classed  as  imitations  or 
arabesques,  —  Kidnapped,  Weir  of  Hermis- 
ton,  The  Merry  Men.  These  books  seem 
at  first  blush  to  have  every  element  of  great- 
ness, except  spontaneity.  The  only  trouble 
is,  they  are  too  perfect. 

If,  after  finishing  Kidnapped,  or  The 
Merry  Men,  we  take  up  Guy  Mannering, 
or  The  Antiquary,  or  any  of  Scott's  books 
which  treat  of  the  peasantry,  the  first  im- 
pression we  gain  is,  that  we  are  happy. 
The  tension  is  gone ;  we  are  in  contact  with 
a  great,  sunny,  benign  human  being  who 
pours  a  flood  of  life  out  before  us  and  floats 
us  as  the  sea  floats  a  chip.  He  is  full  of  old- 
fashioned  and  absurd  passages.  Sometimes 
he  proses,  and  sometimes  he  runs  to  seed. 
He  is  so  careless  of  his  English  that  his  sen- 
tences are  not  always  grammatical ;  but  we 
get  a  total  impression  of  glorious  and  whole- 
some life. 

234 


ROBERT   LOUIS   STEVENSON 

It  is  the  man  Walter  Scott  who  thus  ex- 
cites us.  This  heather,  these  hills,  these 
peasants,  this  prodigality  and  vigor  and 
broad  humor,  enlarge  and  strengthen  us.  If 
we  return  now  to  Weir  of  Hermiston,  we 
seem  to  be  entering  the  cell  of  an  alchemist. 
All  is  intention,  all  calculation.  The  very- 
style  of  Weir  of  Hermiston  is  English  ten 
times  distilled. 

Let  us  imagine  that  directness  and  uncon- 
sciousness are  the  great  qualities  of  style, 
and  that  Stevenson  believes  this.  The  great- 
est directness  and  unconsciousness  of  which 
Stevenson  himself  was  capable  are  to  be 
found  in  some  of  his  early  writings.  Across 
the  Plains,  for  instance,  represents  his  most 
straightforward  and  natural  style.  But  it 
happens  that  certain  great  writers  who 
lived  some  time  ago,  and  were  famous  exam- 
ples of  "  directness,"  have  expressed  them- 
selves in  the  speech  of  their  own  period. 
Stevenson  rejects  his  own  style  as  not  good 
enough  for  him,  not  direct  enough,  not  un- 
conscious enough ;  he  will  have  theirs.  And 
so  he  goes  out  in  quest  of  purity  and  truth, 
and  brings  home   an  elaborate  archaism. 

Although  we  think  of  Stevenson  as  a 
writer  of  fiction,  his  extreme  popularity  is 
due  in  great  measure  to  his  innumerable 
235 


ROBERT   LOUIS   STEVENSON 

essays  and  bits  of  biography  and  autobiog- 
raphy, his  letters,  his  journals,  and  travels  and 
miscellaneous  reminiscences. 

It  was  his  own  belief  that  he  was  a  very 
painstaking  and  conscientious  artist,  and  this 
is  true  to  a  great  extent.  On  the  day  of  his 
death  he  was  engaged  upon  the  most  highly 
organized  and  ambitious  thing  he  ever  at- 
tempted, and  every  line  of  it  shows  the  hand 
of  an  engraver  on  steel.  But  it  is  also  true 
that  during  the  last  years  of  his  life  he  lived 
under  the  pressure  of  photographers  and 
newspaper  syndicates,  who  came  to  him  with 
great  sums  of  money  in  their  hands.  He  was 
exploited  by  the  press  of  the  United  States, 
and  this  is  the  severest  ordeal  which  a  writer 
of  English  can  pass  through.  There  was  one 
year  in  which  he  earned  four  thousand  pounds. 
His  immeasurable  generosity  kept  him  forever 
under  the  harrow  in  money  matters,  and  added 
another  burden  to  the  weight  carried  by  this 
dying  and  indomitable  man.  It  is  no  wonder 
that  some  of  his  work  is  trivial.  The  wonder 
is  that  he  should  have  produced  it  at  all. 

The  journalistic  work  of  Stevenson,  begin- 
ning with  his  Inland  Voyage,  and  the  letters 
afterwards  published  as  Across  the  Plains,  is 
valuable  in  the  inverse  ratio  to  its  embellish- 
ment. Sidney  Colvin  suggested  to  him  that 
236 


ROBERT   LOUIS   STEVENSON 

in  the  letters  Across  the  Plains  the  lights 
were  turned  down.  But,  in  truth,  the  light 
is  daylight.  The  letters  have  a  freshness  that 
midnight  oil  could  not  have  improved,  and 
this  fugitive  sketch  is  of  more  permanent  in- 
terest than  all  the  polite  essays  he  ever 
wrote. 

If  we  compare  the  earlier  with  the  later 
work  of  Stevenson  as  a  magazine  writer,  we 
are  struck  with  the  accentuation  of  his  man- 
nerisms. It  is  not  a  single  style  which  grows 
more  intense,  but  his  amazing  skill  in  many 
which  has  increased. 

The  following  is  a  specimen  of  Stevenson's 
natural  style,  and  it  would  be  hard  to  find  a 
better :  — 

"  The  day  faded ;  the  lamps  were  lit ;  a 
party  of  wild  young  men,  who  got  off  next 
evening  at  North  Platte,  stood  together  on 
the  stern  platform  singing  The  Sweet  By- 
and-By  with  very  tuneful  voices ;  the  chums 
began  to  put  up  their  beds;  and  it  seemed 
as  if  the  business  of  the  day  were  at  an  end. 
But  it  was  not  so ;  for  the  train  stopping  at 
some  station,  the  cars  were  instantly  thronged 
with  the  natives,  wives  and  fathers,  young 
men  and  maidens,  some  of  them  in  little 
more  than  night-gear,  some  with  stable  lan- 
terns, and  all  offering  beds  for  sale." 
237 


ROBERT  LOUIS   STEVENSON 

The  following  is  from  an  essay  written  by 
Stevenson  while  under  the  influence  of  the 
author  of  Rab  and  his  Friends. 

"One  such  face  I  now  remember;  one 
such  blank  some  half  a  dozen  of  us  labor  to 
dissemble.  In  his  youth  he  was  a  most  beau- 
tiful person,  most  serene  and  genial  by  dispo- 
sition, full  of  racy  words  and  quaint  thoughts. 
Laughter  attended  on  his  coming.  .  .  . 
From  this  disaster  like  a  spent  swimmer  he 
came  desperately  ashore,  bankrupt  of  money 
and  consideration ;  creeping  to  the  family  he 
had  deserted ;  with  broken  wing  never  more 
to  rise.  But  in  his  face  there  was  the  light 
of  knowledge  that  was  new  to  it.  Of  the 
wounds  of  his  body  he  was  never  healed ; 
died  of  them  gradually,  with  clear-eyed  resig- 
nation. Of  his  wounded  pride  we  knew  only 
by  his  silence." 

The  following  is  in  the  sprightly  style  of 
the  eighteenth  century :  — 

"Cockshot  is  a  different  article,  but  vastly 
entertaining,  and  has  been  meat  and  drink  to 
me  for  many  a  long  evening.  His  manner  is 
dry,  brisk,  and  pertinacious,  and  the  choice 
of  words  not  much.  The  point  about  him  is 
his  extraordinary  readiness  and  spirit.  You 
can  propound  nothing  but  he  has  either  a 
theory  about  it  ready  made  or  will  have  one 
238 


ROBERT  LOUIS   STEVENSON 

instantly  on  the  stocks,  and  proceed  to  lay 
its  timbers  and  launch  it  on  the  minute. 
1  Let  me  see,'  he  will  say,  '  give  me  a  mo- 
ment, I  should  have  some  theory  for  that.' " 

But  for  serious  matters  this  manner  would 
never  do,  and  accordingly  we  find  that,  when 
the  subject  invites  him,  Stevenson  falls  into 
English  as  early  as  the  time  of  James  I. 

Let  us  imagine  Bacon  dedicating  one  of  his 
smaller  works  to  his  physicians :  — 

"There  are  men  and  classes  of  men  that 
stand  above  the  common  herd  :  the  soldier,  the 
sailor,  and  the  shepherd  not  unfrequently; 
the  artist  rarely;  rarelier  still  the  clergyman; 
the  physician  almost  as  a  rule.  ...  I  forget 
as  many  as  I  remember  and  I  ask  both  to 
pardon  me,  these  for  silence,  those  for  inade- 
quate speech." 

After  finishing  off  this  dedication  to  his 
satisfaction,  Stevenson  turns  over  the  page 
and  writes  a  NOTE  in  the  language  of  two 
and  one-half  centuries  later.  He  is  now  the 
elegant  litterateur  of  the  last  generation  — 
one  would  say  James  Russell  Lowell:  — 

"  The  human  conscience  has  fled  of  late 
the  troublesome  domain  of  conduct  for  what 
I  should  have  supposed  to  be  the  less  con- 
genial field  of  art:  there  she  may  now  be 
said  to  rage,  and  with  special  severity  in  all 
239 


ROBERT   LOUIS   STEVENSON 

that  touches  dialect,  so  that  in  every  novel 
the  letters  of  the  alphabet  are  tortured,  and 
the  reader  wearied,  to  commemorate  shades 
of  mispronunciation." 

But  in  this  last  extract  we  are  still  three 
degrees  away  from  what  can  be  done  in  the 
line  of  gentility  and  delicate  efifeteness  of 
style.  Take  the  following,  which  is  the  very 
peach-blow  of  courtesy :  — ■ 

"  But  upon  one  point  there  should  be  no 
dubiety:  if  a  man  be  not  frugal  he  has  no 
business  in  the  arts.  If  he  be  not  frugal  he 
steers  directly  for  that  last  tragic  scene  of 
le  vieux  saltimbanqite  ;  if  he  be  not  frugal  he 
will  find  it  hard  to  continue  to  be  honest. 
Some  day  when  the  butcher  is  knocking  at 
the  door  he  may  be  tempted,  he  may  be 
obliged  to  turn  out  and  sell  a  slovenly  piece 
of  work.  If  the  obligation  shall  have  arisen 
through  no  wantonness  of  his  own,  he  is  even 
to  be  commended,  for  words  cannot  describe 
how  far  more  necessary  it  is  that  a  man 
should  support  his  family  than  that  he  should 
attain  to — or  preserve  —  distinction  in  the 
arts,"  etc. 

Now  the  very  next  essay  to  this  is  a  sort 
of  intoned  voluntary  played  upon  the  more 
sombre  emotions. 

"What  a  monstrous  spectre  is  this  man, 
240 


ROBERT   LOUIS   STEVENSON 

the  disease  of  the  agglutinated  dust,  lifting 
alternate  feet  or  lying  drugged  in  slumber; 
killing,  feeding,  growing,  bringing  forth  small 
copies  of  himself;  grown  upon  with  hair  like 
grass,  fitted  with  eyes  that  move  and  glitter 
in  his  face;  a  thing  to  set  children  scream- 
ing; —  and  yet  looked  at  nearlier,  known  as 
his  fellows  know  him,  how  surprising  are  his 
attributes." 

There  is  a  tincture  of  Carlyle  in  this  mix- 
ture. There  are  a  good  many  pages  of  Gothic 
type  in  the  later  essays,  for  Stevenson  thought 
it  the  proper  tone  in  which  to  speak  of  death, 
duty,  immortality,  and  such  subjects  as  that. 
He  derived  this  impression  from  the  works 
of  Sir  Thomas  Browne.  But  the  solemnity 
of  Sir  Thomas  Browne  is  like  a  melodious 
thunder,  deep,  sweet,  unconscious,  ravishing. 

"  Time  sadly  overcometh  all  things  and  is 
now  dominant  and  sitteth  upon  a  sphinx  and 
looketh  upon  Memphis  and  old  Thebes,  while 
his  sister  Oblivion  reclineth  semi-somnous 
upon  a  pyramid,  gloriously  triumphing,  mak- 
ing puzzles  of  Titanian  erections,  and  turning 
old  glories  into  dreams.  History  sinketh 
beneath  her  cloud.  The  traveller  as  he 
passeth  through  these  deserts  asketh  of  her 
'who  builded  them?'  And  she  mumbleth 
something,  but  what  it  is  he  heareth  not." 


16 


241 


ROBERT   LOUIS   STEVENSON 

The  frenzy  to  produce  something  like  this 
sadly  overcomes  Stevenson,  in  his  later  es- 
says. But  perhaps  it  were  to  reason  too 
curiously  to  pin  Stevenson  down  to  Browne. 
All  the  old  masters  stalk  like  spectres  through 
his  pages,  and  among  them  are  the  shades  of 
the  moderns,  even  men  that  we  have  dined 
with. 

According  to  Stevenson,  a  certain  kind  of 
subject  requires  a  certain  "  treatment,"  and 
the  choice  of  his  tone  follows  his  title.  These 
"  treatments  "  are  always  traditional,  and  even 
his  titles  tread  closely  on  the  heels  of  former 
titles.  He  can  write  the  style  of  Charles 
Lamb  better  than  Lamb  could  do  it  himself, 
and  his  Hazlitt  is  very  nearly  as  good.  He 
fences  with  his  left  hand  as  well  as  with  his 
right,  and  can  manage  two  styles  at  once  like 
Franz  Liszt  playing  the  allegretto  from  the 
7th  symphony  with  an  air  of  Offenbach  twined 
about  it. 

It  is  with  a  pang  of  disappointment  that  we 
now  and  then  come  across  a  style  which  we 
recognize,  yet  cannot  place. 

People  who  take  enjoyment  in  the  reminis- 
cences awakened  by  conjuring  of  this  kind 
can  nowhere  in  the  world  find  a  master  like 
Stevenson.  Those  persons  belong  to  the 
bookish  classes.  Their  numbers  are  insigni- 
242 


ROBERT   LOUIS   STEVENSON 

ficant,  but  they  arc  important  because  they 
give  countenance  to  the  admiration  of  others 
who  love  Stevenson  with  their  hearts  and 
souls. 

The  reason  why  Stevenson  represents  a 
backward  movement  in  literature,  is  that 
literature  lives  by  the  pouring  into  it  of  new 
words  from  speech,  and  new  thoughts  from 
life,  and  Stevenson  used  all  his  powers  to 
exclude  both  from  his  work.  He  lived  and 
wrote  in  the  past.  That  this  Scotchman 
should  appear  at  the  end  of  what  has  been 
a  very  great  period  of  English  literature,  and 
summarize  the  whole  of  it  in  his  two  hours' 
traffic  on  the  stage,  gives  him  a  strange  place 
in  the  history  of  that  literature.  He  is  the 
Improvisatore,  and  nothing  more.  It  is  im- 
possible to  assign  him  rank  in  any  line  of 
writing.  If  you  shut  your  eyes  to  try  and 
place  him,  you,  find  that  you  cannot  do  it. 
The  effect  he  produces  while  we  are  reading 
him  vanishes  as  we  lay  down  the  book,  and 
we  can  recall  nothing  but  a  succession  of 
flavors.  It  is  not  to  be  expected  that  pos- 
terity will  take  much  interest  in  him,  for  his 
point  and  meaning  are  impressional.  He  is 
ephemeral,  a  shadow,  a  reflection.  He  is  the 
mistletoe  of  English  literature  whose  roots 
are  not  in  the  soil  but  in  the  tree. 
243 


ROBERT   LOUIS   STEVENSON 

But  enough  of  the  nature  and  training  of 
Stevenson  which  fitted  him  to  play  the  part 
he  did.  The  cyclonic  force  which  turned  him 
from  a  secondary  London  novelist  into  some- 
thing of  importance  and  enabled  him  to  give 
full  play  to  his  really  unprecedented  talents 
will  be  recognized  on  glancing  about' us. 

We  are  now  passing  through  the  age  of 
the  Distribution  of  Knowledge.  The  spread 
of  the  English-speaking  race  since  1850,  and 
the  cheapness  of  printing,  have  brought  in 
primers  and  handbooks  by  the  million.  All 
the  books  of  the  older  literatures  are  being 
abstracted  and  sown  abroad  in  popular  edi- 
tions. The  magazines  fulfil  the  same  func- 
tion ;  every  one  of  them  is  a  penny  cyclopedia. 
Andrew  Lang  heads  an  army  of  organized 
workers  who  mine  in  the  old  literature  and 
coin  it  into  booklets  and  cash. 

The  American  market  rules  the  supply  of 
light  literature  in  Great  Britain.  While  Lang 
culls  us  tales  and  legends  and  lyrics  from  the 
Norse  or  Provencal,  Stevenson  will  engage  to 
supply  us  with  tales  and  legends  of  his  own  — 
something  just  as  good.  The  two  men  serve 
the  same  public. 

Stevenson's  reputation  in  England  was  that 
of  a  comparatively  light  weight,  but  his  suc- 
cess here  was  immediate.      We  hailed  him 
244 


ROBERT   LOUIS   STEVENSON 

as  a  classic  —  or  something  just  as  good. 
Everything  he  did  had  the  very  stamp  and 
trademark  of  Letters,  and  he  was  as  strong 
in  one  department  as  another.  We  loved 
this  man ;  and  thenceforward  he  purveyed 
"  literature "  to  us  at  a  rate  to  feed  sixty 
millions  of  people  and  keep  them  clamoring 
for  more. 

Does  any  one  believe  that  the  passion  of 
the  American  people  for  learning  and  for 
antiquity  is  a  slight  and  accidental  thing? 
Does  any  one  believe  that  the  taste  for  imita- 
tion old  furniture  is  a  pose?  It  creates  an 
eddy  in  the  Maelstrom  of  Commerce.  It  is 
a  power  like  Niagara,  and  represents  the  sin- 
cere appreciation  of  half  educated  people  for 
second  rate  things.  There  is  here  nothing 
to  be  ashamed  of.  In  fact  there  is  every- 
thing to  be  proud  of  in  this  progress  of  the 
arts,  this  importation  of  culture  by  the  carload. 
The  state  of  mind  it  shows  is  a  definite  and 
typical  state  of  miftd  which  each  individual 
passes  through,  and  which  precedes  the  dis- 
covery that  real  things  are  better  than  sham. 
When  the  latest  Palace  Hotel  orders  a  hun- 
dred thousand  dollars'  worth  of  Louis  XV. 
furniture  to  be  made  —  and  most  well  made 
—  in  Buffalo,  and  when  the  American  public 
gives  Stevenson  an  order  for  Pulvis  et  Umbra 
245 


ROBERT   LOUIS   STEVENSON 

—  the  same  forces  are  at  work  in  each  case. 
It  is  Chicago  making  culture  hum. 

And  what  kind  of  a  man  was  Stevenson? 
Whatever  may  be  said  about  his  imitative- 
ness,  his  good  spirits  were  real.  They  are  at 
the  bottom  of  his  success,  the  strong  note  in  his 
work.  They  account  for  all  that  is  paradoxi- 
cal in  his  effect.  He  often  displays  a  senti- 
mentalism  which  has  not  the  ring  of  reality. 
And  yet  we  do  not  reproach  him.  He  has 
by  stating  his  artistic  doctrines  in  their  frankest 
form  revealed  the  scepticism  inherent  in 
them.  And  yet  we  know  that  he  was  not  a 
sceptic ;  on  the  contrary,  we  like  him,  and  he 
was  regarded  by  his  friends  as  little  lower 
than  the  angels. 

Why  is  it  that  we  refuse  to  judge  him  by 
his  own  utterances?  The  reason  is  that  all 
of  his  writing  is  playful,  and  we  know  it. 
The  instinct  at  the  bottom  of  all  mimicry 
is  self-concealment.  Hence  the  illusive  and 
questionable  personality  of  Stevenson.  Hence 
our  blind  struggle  to  bind  this  Proteus  who 
turns  into  bright  fire  and  then  into  running 
water  under  our  hands.  The  truth  is  that 
as  a  literary  force,  there  was  no  such  man 
as  Stevenson  ;  and  after  we  have  racked  our 
brains  to  find  out  the  mechanism  which  has 
been  vanquishing  the  chess  players  of  Europe, 
246 


ROBERT   LOUIS   STEVENSON 

there  emerges  out  of  the  Box  of  Maclzel  a 
pale  boy. 

But  the  courage  of  this  boy,  the  heroism  of 
his  life,  illumine  all  his  works  with  a  per- 
sonal interest.  The  last  ten  years  of  his  life 
present  a  long  battle  with  death. 

We  read  of  his  illnesses,  his  spirit ;  we  hear 
how  he  never  gave  up,  but  continued  his 
works  by  dictation  and  in  dumb  show  when 
he  was  too  weak  to  hold  the  pen,  too  weak 
to  speak.  This  courage  and  the  lovable 
nature  of  Stevenson  won  the  world's  heart. 
He  was  regarded  with  a  peculiar  tenderness 
such  as  is  usually  given  only  to  the  young. 
Honor,  and  admiration  mingled  with  affec- 
tion followed  him  to  his  grave.  Whatever  his 
artistic  doctrines,  he  revealed  his  spiritual 
nature  in  his  work.  It  was  this  nature 
which  made  him  thus  beloved. 


247 


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